Mob Scene: “Shambleau”

Posted on May 31, 2021 by JoeNazare

Catherine L. Moore’s classic 1933 tale of alien parasitism, “Shambleau” (one of the most popular pieces ever to be published in Weird Tales), opens with a scene of angry villagers on the hunt. “The wild hysteria of the mob” rings in the streets of Lakkdarol, a Wild-West-type Martian settlement–“a raw, red little town where anything might happen, and very often did.” A “motley crowd” has gathered: “Earthmen and Martians and a sprinkling of Venusian swampmen and strange, nameless denizens of unnamed planets–a typical Lakkdarol mob.” But there is nothing typical about the mob scene that unfolds. The pursuers gripped by “the savage exultation of the chase” strangely slip between referring to their quarry as a “girl” and a “thing.” The observation that “They desired the girl with an explicable bloodthirstiness” also intrigues with its ambiguity, its blurring of the line between attacking and attraction. When the protagonist Northwest Smith, in a burst of chivalry, intervenes and claims that the girl is with him, the mob’s “animosity” instantly transforms into “horror” and “disgust.” The scornful crowd abandons Smith “as swiftly as if whatever unknowing sin he had committed were contagious.”

The furious pursuit of the “berry-brown girl in a single tattered garment” might be construed as the tracking of a runaway slave (Moore also invokes the context of witch-hunting), but what Smith fails to realize is that the townspeople’s repeated chant of the foreign word “Shambleau” is the equivalent of Eastern European peasants crying vampire. It’s not until after Smith invites the girl home that he (slowly) discovers the predatorial threat underlying her exotic, feline femininity. The red turban worn on the head of the creature (who is posited as the potential origin of the Earthly myth of the Medusa) conceals a nest of writhing tentacles that surreptitiously attach themselves to Smith and suck his life-force. What’s worse, this awful mode of feeding creates an erotic feeling–an addictive thrill–in the victim. By story’s end, the curious behavior of the mob in the opening scene is clarified (and the desperate urge to exterminate perhaps justified). The Shambleau was chased after so impassionedly not simply because she was some swarthy, criminal Other, but because she was recognized as the source of the guiltiest of pleasures.

Dracula Extrapolated: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Posted on May 26, 2021 by JoeNazare

Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is, in and of itself, a landmark of Gothic horror. It is also the most influential work of horror ever written, having inspired countless tales of vampire-themed fiction, not to mention an ever-growing number of film and television adaptations. Today, in honor of the 124th anniversary of the original publication date of Stoker’s novel, I am debuting a new feature here on my Dispatches from the Macabre Republic blog. Dracula Extrapolated will explore various instances of the novel Dracula‘s undying afterlife, considering specific examples in literature and visual media of the rewriting (e.g. sequels, prequels, alternate histories, shifted narrative perspectives, supporting character foregroundings) and development (elaborations/variations on the vampiric-invasion “plot”) of Stoker’s source text. I begin with Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film adaptation, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

What If the character Dracula was equated with the historical figure Vlad Tepes and then transformed into a tragic lover?

The opening scene of Coppola’s film intriguingly flashes back four centuries and furnishes an origin story for Count Dracula’s vampirism. While the Christian knight Vlad Dracula is off fighting a war against the Turks, a devious missive is sent to his beloved wife Elisabeta claiming that he has been slain in battle. Distraught over the (false) report, Elisabeta throws herself from the walls of Castle Dracula. Dracula returns home to grieve over her corpse, only to be told by the priests in attendance that as a suicide, Elisabeta is damned in the eyes of the Church and cannot be given a Christian burial. Enraged, Dracula desecrates the chapel, renounces God, and vows to return from his own death “to avenge [his wife’s] with all the powers of darkness.” His rash deeds and words earn him God’s curse, an eternally bloodthirsty existence as the undead.

Let’s leave aside the fact that Coppola’s film perpetuates a great fallacy–that Stoker based his fictional character on a real-life antecedent (scholar Elizabeth Miller devotes a whole chapter of her book Dracula: Sense and Nonsense to debunking such myth, convincingly arguing that Stoker only found a name for Dracula in the historical Vlad and knew nothing about the Impaler’s grim proclivities and fearful reputation). Similarly, we can forgive the film’s derivative deployment of the reincarnated-love-interest (Elisabeta ends up reembodied as Mina) plot device whose history traces back to other Universal Monster films (cf. 1932’s The Mummy) and extends through vampire narratives of the 20th Century (the 60’s soap opera Dark Shadows; the 1973 Dan-Curtis-produced TV film Dracula). The question to consider here is: what are the ramifications of the Coppola film’s narrative maneuver?

On the positive side, the film’s prologue not only provides a rationale for Vlad the Impaler’s evil reputation as a scourging warlord, but also motivates the actions of the Dracula character. One of the weaknesses of Stoker’s novel is its resort to credulity-challenging coincidence: how convenient indeed that when traveling from Transylvania (where Jonathan Harker has been left imprisoned), Dracula lands in a spot in England that lets him to sink his teeth into Harker’s friend Lucy and his fiancée Mina (a choice of prey that later allows the book’s write-minded protagonists to compare notes and compose a plan for defeating the vampire). Here in the film there’s at least an understandable explanation for Dracula’s specific path of predation. Lucy serves as little more than a replenishing meal, but Mina’s pursuit by Dracula is a deliberate attempt to reunite with the woman he’s identified as his lost love.

But if the film clarifies Dracula’s motivations, it simultaneously muddles the character’s iconic monstrosity. In its determination to turn Gothic horror into Gothic romance, Coppola’s Dracula (calling it Bram Stoker’s Dracula surely creates one of the most misleading titles of all time) subverts its terrifying first act: the scenes set at Castle Dracula, where Gary Oldman cuts a supremely sinister figure as the Count. After his emigration to, and rejuvenation within, England, Dracula becomes a confusing person for the audience: should viewers actually root for the vampire to get the girl (who was already his bride in a past life)? Should we fear Dracula for his bloodlust, or pity him for being love-starved for so long? Dracula hardly strikes as imposing after Mina breaks off their affair (for the moment, at least) to wed Jonathan: Dracula’s bout of wild, dare I say womanly, weeping (an ugly display of emotion that turns the Count’s countenance grotesquely misshapen) makes me want to channel Tom Hanks and proclaim “There’s no crying in vampiring!”

The love story that film forces also radically alters Mina’s character. In Stoker’s novel, Mina is depicted as the epitome of feminine virtue (versus the more wayward Lucy) and arguably the driving impetus for the Crew of Light’s defeat of Dracula. Here in the film, though, she proves a cold-hearted adulteress (professing her love for Dracula even as he confesses to a fatal feeding on Lucy). Worse, Winona Ryder’s Mina emerges (as she grows more in touch with her Elisabetan nature) as a nearly-treacherous accomplice of the Count, someone whose gun points at her husband Jonathan and the other heroes during the climactic showdown with Dracula. This radical departure from the novel highlights the inexplicable leap the film has taken with its reincarnation plot. Why exactly has Elisabeta resurfaced (several centuries after her suicidal plunge) as a modern English woman? Simply so Coppola could romanticize Stoker’s narrative, it seems.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula features some absolutely stunning visuals: lavish costumes (Lucy’s wedding/burial dress; Dracula’s armor), grand scenery (orange-burnt skies; the mountain-topping castle) and frightful supernatural incident (Dracula’s morphing into a horde of rats). The sublimely Gothic look of the film is fortuitous, because it helps distract viewers from the ridiculousness (don’t get me started on the sappy ending, in which a teary Mina mercifully releases Dracula from his vampiric curse) that results from the attempt to transform Stoker’s revolting and unremittingly evil archvillain into a sympathetic figure.

Lore Report: “Long Shadows” (Episode 171)

Posted on May 25, 2021 by JoeNazare

Even the places we live can become extraordinary given enough time. After all, the longer humans live in a place, the more of themselves they imprint upon its streets and landscape. But if you want to explore the oldest in America, there’s only one place to go. It might be bright and sunny, but don’t let that fool you, because time has left a mark that can still be felt today, thanks to all the tragedies that have paid a visit. It seems that there’s one more rule that history wants us to remember: the older our cities get, the darker their shadows become.

A trip to St. Augustine, Florida, is on the itinerary in the latest episode of the Lore podcast. To no surprise, host Aaron Mahnke gravitates toward the darker side of town. He recounts tales of creepy cemeteries, ghost sightings galore, and one unnerving case of nearly premature burial. The narrative seamlessly weaves together local lore with St. Augustine’s daunting geography (its treacherous coastline) and bloody history (including the story of how Fort Matanzas–the Spanish word for “massacres”–earned its name). While there’s nothing earth-shattering about this episode, it nevertheless does a fine job of digging up the various skeletons (and that’s not just a metaphor here!) that have accrued over the years. With its emphasis on the past’s persistent impact on the present, “Long Shadows” clearly shines a light on the American Gothic.

Decays in Vegas

Posted on May 23, 2021 by JoeNazare

Zach Snyder’s Army of the Dead (currently playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix) presents itself as an intriguing genre hybrid. In this zombie/heist film (think Ocean’s Eleven meets Dawn of the Dead), a team of mercenaries assembles to infiltrate the burnt-out, undead-infested, walled-off city of Las Vegas and steal a sizable cash bundle from a casino vault. The problem, though, is that heist element of the story is sorely underdeveloped. No especial cleverness–mainly just militaristic might–is required to reach the casino. The penetration of the vault is basically accomplished by the team’s safecracking expert quietly listening to the door-lock’s internal mechanisms (the preceding uncovering of the booby traps leading up to the vault does make for a witty sequence, however).

No doubt, the undead end of the mashup gets greater play here, mostly to positive result. Represented as a primitive tribe rather than a stereotypical mindless horde, the zombies bring some fresh thrills to the table. But their battles with the mercenary team still manage to disappoint, as the zombies are either picked off with video-game ease by high caliber weaponry or inexplicably manage to avoid point-blank shooting with Matrix–esque expertise. Repeated instances of the mercenaries choosing to shoot the barechested zombie king in his protective face plate struck me as mind-numbingly dumb.

Snyder’s film appears to revel in reference to other genre fare. Watching it, I detected visual echoes of, and plot parallels to, a host of predecessors (e.g., Aliens, Predator, Clash of the Titans, Escape from New York). But all this entertaining allusiveness only accentuates the fact that Army of the Dead never manages to find its own cinematic footing. The film’s story beats are all too familiar, offering viewers nothing unexpected. The few attempts at plot twist are clumsily handled (i.e. clearly forecasted).

If this film proves one thing, it’s that Dave Bautista is not yet worthy of leading-man status. His acting here is wooden (his Scott Ward is consistently out-emoted by the zombie king, a character with zero lines of dialogue). Admittedly, the script does Bautista no favors, forcing him into a series of torturously corny conversations with his estranged daughter. Perhaps what is most surprising, though, is the lackluster nature of his action heroics. Prior to the conclusion (the inevitable showdown with the zombie king), the nominal leader of the mercenaries takes a decided backseat to the other killing-machines on his team.

There’s a lot I did enjoy about this film. The post-apocalyptic Las Vegas mise-en-scene (complete with a zombified, untamed Siegfried and Roy tiger on the prowl) is marvelous. Army of the Dead also makes inspired–and often quite amusing–use of its soundtrack (starting with Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds”). The inventive kills and glorious gore that fans have come to expect from zombie narratives are finely displayed. But even with a two-and-a-half hour runtime, the film seems to stuff in more story than it can adequately unpack and more characters than it can develop beyond clichés. Never living up to the promise of its zombie/heist premise, Army of the Dead forms an underwhelming campaign.

The Five Best Creepshow Stories So Far

Posted on May 17, 2021 by JoeNazare

The Creepshow series recently finished another frightfully fun season on Shudder. Below are my choices for the five (in honor of the number of segments in the original anthology film) best stories that have streamed so far. (Note: the contents–“Survivor Type” and “Twittering from the Circus of the Dead”–of last Halloween’s fully-animated holiday special have been excluded from consideration here, partly because they would dominate the list.)

No small part of the Creepshow charm, though, is its throwback pulp packaging, so I am going to preface my list with another pair of five-packs.

The Five Best (Corpse-)Cold Opens

1. Episode 1.1: The Creep kicks the series off by cracking open a crate (a replica of the one in the 1982 film) that doesn’t contain the carnivorous Fluffy, but rather a horde of Creepshow issues.

2. Episode 1.3: The Creep creates a remarkably grotesque jack-o’-lantern–or what he’d probably call a “hack-o’-lantern”–after dispatching some obnoxious trick-or-treaters.

3. Episode 1.6: The Creep goes fishing, and judging by the moldering corpses around him, he’s about to reel in something real scary.

4. Episode 2.4: The Creep cackles delightedly after his macabre mug gets filled with some disgusting sludge.

5. Episode 2.5: The Creep dons some VR goggles and immerses himself in a first-ghoul-shooter version of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

The Creep’s Five Most Insidious Intros

1. …And now my rabid readers, this fancy fable of fear follows Clark Wilson on a midnight stroll….Little does he know that his future holds a fantastic find, a devilish digital that I like to call…”The Finger” (Episode 1.2)

2. …And now, boils and ghouls, a real barn-burner of a tale about a boy’s newfound, heh-heh, com-pain-yon! One that’s sure not to die on the vine! Unless you’re too much of a scaredy-crow that is!–“The Companion” (Episode 1.4)

3. …Back for more? This poisonous tale will be sure to have you bug-eyed and squirming in your seats! So strap in for this perilous parable that I like to call…”Pesticide” (Episode 2.2)

4. Welcome, dear fiends! Back for more, I see….Come join me on a voyage of fear, betrayal, and extraterrestrial terror! By the end I guarantee you’ll be gasping for air. So strap in and let’s see if you have what it takes for this otherworldly tale I like to call…”The Right Snuff” (Episode 2.3)

5. Have I got a special treat for all you ghoul gourmets. There will be hell toupee if the plumber doesn’t get to the slimy center of this monstrous mystery. This sludge-filled story will wrap you in its scum-covered strands in…”Pipe Screams” (Episode 2.4)

The Five Best Stories So Far

1. “All Hallows Eve” (Episode 1.3). Halloween iconography and lore are finely invoked in this story of a group of trick-or-treaters who are not all that they’re dressed up to be. The classic Creepshow motif of comeuppance combines with a discernible Trick ‘r Treat vibe.

2. “Night of the Paw” (Episode 1.5). This retelling of “The Monkey’s Paw” proves more than a wishful rehash (the climactic plot twist definitely ups the ante on W.W. Jacobs’s original tale). The eponymous appendage is strikingly realistic, and ultra-unnerving as it curls its own fingers down upon dire fulfillment of a person’s requests.

3. “Skincrawlers” (Episode 1.6). The body-sculpting industry is revolutionized by the discovery of an exotic South American leech that feeds on human fat tissue. Naturally, this seeming quick fix for the overweight causes terrible affliction, leading to scenes of spectacularly gruesome, Cronenbergian body horror, and the emergence of a tentacular monster that might have escaped from the set of Carpenter’s The Thing.

4. “Model Kid” (Episode 2.1). The figure of the “monster kid” is canonical to Creepshow (cf. young Joe Hill in the frame story of the original film), and this story clearly offers loving homage. Classic horror (e.g., Universal monster films, Aurora model kits) gets perfect Creepshow treatment.

5. “Public Television of the Dead” (Episode 2.1). This satiric and gloriously gonzo story combined with “Model Kid” to make the second season premiere the show’s most outstanding episode to date. Plenty of laughs (and scares) await anyone who ever wanted to see a Bob-Ross-type painter battle demons from the Necronomicon.

Lore Report: “Into the Wild” (Episode 170)

Posted on May 10, 2021 by JoeNazare

In the decades that followed, Peter the Wild Boy would become a living representation of an age-old debate: what exactly makes us human? Is it something we’re born with, or can it be taught? And in the process, it demonstrates humanity’s ancient fascination with an area of folklore that expresses our fears, highlights our flaws, and begs us to question whether or not we’ve evolved as a species. Stories about creatures that shouldn’t exist–stories about the Wild Man.

In the latest episode of the Lore podcast, host Aaron Mahnke leads listeners beyond the pale of civilization and into the woods, where dark folklore easily takes root. Mahnke tackles the subject of the Wild Man by first ranging far back in history (invoking texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the writings of Herodotus and Pliny the Elder), but focuses primarily on the North America of the past few centuries. The stories he shares grow progressively more sinister, crossing a spectrum from unnerving glimpse to grisly murder. All the talk of encounters with a feral, hairy humanoid naturally points the discussion towards Bigfoot, yet Mahnke thankfully doesn’t settle on recounting familiar tales of the popular (if elusive) creature. I do wish that Mahnke had taken a step back to consider why the Wild Man is such a prominent figure in the folklore of so many cultures, but that is my lone criticism of an otherwise entertaining episode.

Joe Nazare

Dispatches from the Macabre Republic

Monthly Archives: May 2021