The Thing

The Thing is a classic '80s horror flick.  We have average acting combined with bizarre special effects trending closer to grotesque then scary, and, to cap it all off, a climax that doesn't make much sense but has plenty of action and explosions.  And yet, somehow within all of this we find a sort of guilty pleasure enjoyment.

The idea of the monster in The Thing is definitely frightening.  An alien that can kill and then imitate anything.  You never know who or what it could be.  So you have to be suspicious of everyone.  This idea works great as long as you don't scrutinize it too closely.  (like how does it get all the memories of the person it imitates?)  And of course the movie has a lot of fun in the '80s playground of communist suspicion.

The actual reveals of the monster, however, just don't stand up to time and the movie doesn't have the atmosphere of Alien to fall back on.  When we do see the Thing, which is fairly early in the movie, we are treated to something truly bizarre, but not really frightening.  I would much rather have had a longer lead up to the reveal, with people disappearing one by one and us trying to guess what was going on and who was responsible.  But then, that would have been a different movie.

 And then there's the climax.  An explosion fest that would make Michael Bay happy, but that provides little in logic.  So you think the alien wants to just freeze and wait for a rescue mission, so your plan is to blow everything up and die?  Cause that prevents the alien from freezing and waiting for a rescue mission how?  The shining light to this is the final scene, where MacReady and Childs are left freezing in the snow, neither sure the other isn't going to kill him.  I have to say, that is a great ending.

The Wolfman - Jonathan Maberry

I've never seen either the original Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. or the remake with Anthony Hopkins, so I had no idea what to expect from this book.  Except of course that it would be about a werewolf.  Fortunately, in a way, I was sick when I sat down to read this.  So I had nothing else to do but sit and read the books through in about a day.  And to my mild surprise, it actually held my attention the entire time.  Werewolves being so done lately, I wasn't sure how interesting I would find it.

The key to this story for me was the time Maberry took to establish the characters.  Done a certain way, werewolves are immediately sympathetic.  A person's free will taken away, forced to do horrible things they never would on their own, and then forced to live with that knowledge and the consequences.  Maberry, and the original screenwriter, compound this by creating a sympathetic character right from the start.  Lawrence isn't perfect.  Far from it.  But he is painted as someone who has endured some horrible things and already feels as though he doesn't belong.  From a certain perspective, you could see how the power of the werewolf would be an allure to him.  This is then countered by Sir John.  Who is completely unsympathetic for most of the book, and welcomes the power and savagery of the werewolf.

This characterization is what made the book imminently enjoyable.  The actual scenes of the Wolfman causing mayhem fell a bit flat for me.  I did think it was interesting that Maberry built weaknesses into the Wolfman.  Such as being confused by all the possible targets in London, or being mesmerized by the singing.  But in the end he was an invincible killing machine and he did what you would expect.

And then the ending.  I actually thought this was very well done.  I particularly liked Maberry's decision to use Werewolf and Wolfman as names for the two beasts.  It felt like a stroke of genius to me, though I suppose it might seem obvious to others.  It allowed me to easily tell who he was talking about through the entire fight.  The fight itself was good, and I was glad the walking-stick came back to play a part.

And of course the Inspector gets bit and the cycle continues.  Excellent.

And speaking of the stick, am I the only one who felt like a vampire gave it to him?

Over all it was a very fun read.  Definitely far better than I expected.

Alien

There are few movies that really stand the test of time, but Alien is definitely one them.  I watched this movie for probably the tenth time last night, and it was still just as good as the first.  There is so much good to talk about with this movie, but as this is a class on monsters, I'll stick to that.

Half of this movie (at least) doesn't even have the alien in it.  Unless you count the face-huger that doesn't do much.  But while this bothered me to no end in the new Godzilla movie, Scott makes it work.  He spends this early time getting us fully immersed in the setting.  While there isn't a ton of characterization, we do get to know most of the stereotypes each crew member represents.  This is a horror movie after all and I'm not really expecting deep thoughtful characters.  The mood is what is important, and this is developed beautifully.  This is really a movie you have to watch in near total dark to get the full impact.

The Alien itself boils down to the same thing as most other monster movies.  He sneaks around, killing people, and either leaving no trace, or a bloody mess.  Standard.  His kills even exhibit that unknowable inability to make even the slightest motions to attempt to save themselves.  (Only Ripley and Parker seem able to take any actions in the Alien's presence)  So there is nothing about the Alien itself that really serves to terrify any more than any other monster movie, especially from the '80s.  (unless maybe it is Geiger's superb creature design)

So what makes this a great monster movie?  The atmosphere and the pacing.  Scott accomplishes both so perfectly, that you forget (even on the 10th viewing) that this is just another monster, and you worry.  The claustrophobia of the ship (even one as big as the Nostromo combined with the refinery) keeps the action tight, and the single monster keeps the suspense high.  Additionally there is almost no time wasted in this movie.  Every scene serves the purpose of creating an even better atmosphere.  Even the long into helps to do this.  Add in the excellent score, and it all makes a very enjoyable movie.  Is it perfect, probably not.  I would like to know a bit more about the characters perhaps, and seen a bit more action on the part of the victims, but that is all secondary.

As an aside, I also recently re-watched Predetor which was released 8 years later.  It uses a more action take on a similar story.  But as much as I like Predator, I feel Alien has the better idea.  Perhaps somewhere between standing helplessly and unloading 500 rounds into a swath of jungle?  Or right, that's Aliens, one of my favorite movies ever.  But that's not a horror movie anymore.

World War Z - Max Brooks

World War Z takes a different angle on Zombie stories.  Rather than tell us the story through narration, Brooks organizes the events as a series of accounts as told by the people who lived through them.  It is unique, and for this reason I was really looking forward to reading it.  After all, I'm a big fan of using diary entries and first hand accounts in fiction.  And who better to hear about a zombie war from than the people who lived through it.

Unfortunately this gimmick is really all World War Z had going for it for me.  And like most gimmicks, it ran thin pretty quickly.  Because the "interviews" are all separate individuals, there is no main character.  No characters at all in the traditional sense.  We are given a brief intro, that person shares an account, and then we move on.  There is no one to root for.  No one to care about.  No one to be concerned for.  Even within the mini stories we can't become too concerned, because obviously they lived through it.

Don't get me wrong, there is some poignant stuff in there.  The story of the Russian soldier describing the "decimation" of her unit was very well done.  But in every tale that starts to nudge some emotion, there is the fact that you know the person lived, and you know you will never see this character again.

Then there are the parts that just made me shake my head.  Now I'm not huge on zombies as a villain regardless.  They just aren't scary.  Especially slow, stumbling, moaning ones too stupid to open a door or unbuckle a seat belt.  I mean really at that point the only real danger is starvation.  The villain might as well be a blizzard.  The effect is the same.  But certain parts of this book just made it obvious Brooks couldn't think of reasonable ways to make this threat really threatening.

Take the initial spread.  Somehow, with internet and social media (yes this was released in '06 but social media was well on its way even then) with email and the 24 hour bored out of their brains news cycle, this zombie plague manages to spread across the world with virtually no one knowing or caring.  Until it's too late of course.  The CDC, US government, and general populous go insane over a few cases of bird flu but zombies?  Meh.  This was obviously a construct Brooks created to ensure there could actually be a story.  And don't even get me started on the chapter detailing how hard it was for someone to make propaganda films.  Really?  Like every government in the world wouldn't be jumping all over propaganda films?  Cause they've never done that before during... I don't know...  WW2?

And then there's the "Battle of Yonkers".  For all his research into what weapons we have, Brooks obviously doesn't think much of the military.  Now I'm not saying the military doesn't do some dumb stuff, I was in it, I know.  But when it comes to actually prosecuting a straight up fight.  They know exactly what they're doing.  Seriously, by then they would obviously know they needed to blow brains out.  And no one does that better than snipers.  Lots and lots of snipers.  With lots of ammo.  That's a no-brainer. (pun intended)  All of the things the interviewee mentions as having been done wrong, were exactly the obvious things the military would do.  But then, if the military was competent, there wouldn't be much of a book either.

In the end, though, it was the repetitive nature of the interviews and the lack of anything to really engage me that killed this book for me.  If Brooks really wanted an epic world spanning zombie war, I think he would have been better served with something closer to Red Storm Rising meets Outbreak.  With characters we can get to know and care about and a threat that is more logically a threat without needing to throw common sense out the window.  Now that book would be epic.