Swamps And Dry-Ice Fog: PUMPKINHEAD

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Perhaps because it deals with teenagers being killed off by a monster, Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead has never gained the recognition it deserves. Despite a pair of minor weaknesses -- a musical score that offers nothing of interest, and characterizations that serve the purpose of the story in the most immediate ways without going much deeper -- the production as a whole has always impressed me, and improves every time I watch the film again.

Right from the opening sequence bathed in Mario Bava-style blues and reds, the film provides a strong visual impact. What I love especially is the transformation of Topanga Canyon into something strange. Unlike the over-blown and ugly designs of a typical Tim Burton film, the natural settings in Pumpkinhead resemble slightly-hallucinatory extensions beyond our world into the sinister zone of a fairy tale. Much of the action takes place on hillsides, in a slanted, choking wilderness of dust and forest, swamps and dry-ice fog; in such a place, the sudden appearances of a witch hut, of a cemetery pumpkin patch, seem almost inevitable. The shanty-town, as well, could almost be an actual place, if not for the slightest of stylizations.

These touches of dreamlike reality give the film a conviction that stands out. If Pumpkinhead seems fated to be nothing more than a cult film, it can at least be one that offers genuine merits of atmosphere and image.

Brief And Personal

The dead disappointment that sinks into your gut when you want to support a kind-hearted author, only to find that he writes 600,000 page novels, or that she writes only books in multiple series, or that he writes only Lovecrapean stuff....

Please, make the work personal. Make it yours, and make it brief.

The Features Of The Real Mr. Hyde

Illustration by Mervyn Peake for The Folio Society, 1948. Click for a better jpeg.

A few comments on "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," revisited for the first time in decades.

-- The disclosure that Hyde and Jekyll are one man comes without warning, without preparation, in the final pages of the story: a narrative trick that I would call insanely bold.

-- Adapters from Rouben Mamoulian to Mervyn Peake have shown Hyde as monstrous, but Stevenson makes clear that Hyde gives "an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation." Hyde is "dwarfish" yet otherwise normal, but people respond to his face with "a spirit of enduring hatred."

“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.”

-- My only criticism of the story is that I wanted to return, at the end, to Utterson. The story begins with Utterson, follows him throughout the mystery, but leaves him to brood offstage at the death of his two closest friends. I would have been happy with one final paragraph about his thoughts on the "strange case."

-- The one path into a story is the prose.

"Six o’clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson’s dwelling, and still he was digging at the problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield’s tale went by before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the doctor’s; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street corner crush a child and leave her screaming. And still the figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and grew apace in the lawyer’s mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde."

Scars, Bloody Wounds, Aches and Joys: THE AMERICAN

The American, by Jeffrey Thomas.
Journalstone, 2020.

An honest review should balance the merits of a book against any weaknesses. Here, the weaknesses are almost buried by the power of the story and the fascination of the characters. Any book that keeps me turning the pages until five o'clock in the morning deserves my full attention; any book that shocks me and moves me in scene after scene deserves all the praise I can bring to it.

Let me start with praise.

At one point in the book, a thoroughly despicable character tries to justify his own evils:

"[He] had read somewhere that 4% of the population (in the US…or was it worldwide?) were sociopaths. That 1% were psychopaths. He wasn’t clear on the difference, but it was food for thought. It wasn’t an anomaly, he thought. It was a trend.

"In the past, human beings had relied on close groups to ensure their survival against the rigors of nature. Of nature’s harsh elements, of nature’s predatory -- or at least, competitive -- animals. Nature had required that humans bond together, create tribes, societies, cities and nations (and of course, the resultant aberrations of religions and political parties).

"But…wasn’t humanity beyond all that now? Survival was more assured, taken for granted. And hence: the evolution of a superior human. No longer inhibited by the bond to a tribe. A human freed of fearful loyalties, except the loyalty to oneself. To one’s own needs and urges."

In a modern world where the values of the marketplace have stamped out the values of human communities, this philosophy might carry weight, but in The American, Jeffrey Thomas brings out the necessity for bonds of family and friendship. Even in cities where murders are currency, where cold killings become tools of business, people still matter; they hang on, they work together to keep the world in one piece.

This focus on human compassion takes the book in directions that I had not anticipated. Against the temptation of a thriller to keep the plot simple, Thomas has chosen, instead, to emphasize meaning and a personal perspective. The horror of this book is undeniable, but so is the humanity; chapters that show the worst of human actions alternate with scenes of people at their best.

Thomas writes with a keen eye for landscapes -- not physical landscapes, but social. He knows how people interact in bars and offices, theme parks and morgues; he understands the ways in which families and friendships fall apart, and then come together again; he feels, in his gut, how the past can wound, and how -- unexpectedly, without warning -- the present can heal. This might sound abstract, but his approach to the story is relentlessly physical: pain and loss, community and reconcilation, are things that we can touch in this book. Thomas never shies away when a bullet shatters through an eye socket, but he also finds comfort in cold beer and hot soup, in Buddhist temples and christmas lights, in the stop-and-start exhilaration of high-speed motorcycles on jam-packed streets. Scars, bloody wounds, aches and joys, all come to life on the page.

Now for the criticism.

I suspect that most readers will have no trouble with the book's prose. Thomas knows what to say, and often writes with eloquence:

"[He] came to a glass-walled office in which Evelyn was housed behind her desk like a museum specimen representing her species."

"Vietnam was full to the brim with beautiful women -- who knew better than Chen, who made his livelihood off that beauty in all its hunger and desperation? -- but this woman’s beauty was transcendent in a way that was hard to put a finger on. She emanated a deep, unarticulated misery that spoke of classical drama, beyond the scope of one person’s paltry life; a misery of the whole of human existence, no doubt beyond her own capacity for understanding. She was a mute and uncomprehending vessel of that suffering, like a small child with terminal cancer."

Elsewhere, just frequently enough to be noticed, the prose trips on itself, but seems not so much badly written as badly proof-read.

For example, in certain passages, when present participles gum up the prose and choke out the simple past tense, results precede actions:

"He slung her off him, grabbing hold of her tank top to do so."

"'Indeed,' the American said, his laughter dying away."

"Thanh asked about their father, deciding to change the subject."

"Trenor couldn’t help but chuckle, finding it funny that here they were both amused now over the subject of Quan’s father’s demise."

Subjects and objects fade into obscurity:

"The madam’s laughter died away quickly, her expression darkening, but she knew better than to give in to her anger with this man."

"The bloody garment tore away in his hands, leaving her thudding onto her back."

"He didn’t return the eye patch to his head, stuffing it into the pocket of his jacket."

"He nodded at Quan’s wallet, which he was just returning to a pocket in his fatigues."

When sentences break into fragments, they lose immediate clarity:

"Closer now, entering into another thrown pool of light."

Tacked-on qualifications intrude:

"Her eyes remained staring from her mask of blood, however."

Sometimes, the viewpoint characters alternate within a scene; this feels like having a door slammed on your face while a secret panel drops open at your feet.

A fast reader might skip over these flaws, a captivated reader might glance at them in passing, but I read slowly, for pleasure; I could feel these potholes jar the bones of my feet. In a book so compelling and so clear with its intentions, written by someone so obviously thoughtful, these flaws represent a failure to revise.

They might have crippled a lesser book, but this one kept me reading beyond every speedbump of language and technique. Its characters made me fear and hope for them; its narrative made me think about my own losses and my own moments of community. I can ask many things of a book, but above all, I want the book to seem alive. The American lives.

The Thing From Another World

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For all of its impact, and for all of the praise the film has won since it debuted, The Thing From Another World has been dogged by two persistent criticisms.

The first, I have to concede: in terms of concept, the film's "intellectual carrot" is a big step downwards from the shape-shifting alien of John W. Campbell's original story, and in visual terms, it brings to mind not so much a being from another planet as a variation on the Jack Pierce / Boris Karloff Frankenstein's monster. The makers of the film concealed this limitation as well as they could with stark shadows and camera set-ups; perhaps no one at the time could have filmed Campbell's monster convincingly. (Except for Willis O'Brien? I wish he had tried!)

The second criticism I find hard to accept. Many have argued that this film sets military "practicality" and force above scientific curiosity. For example, in the words of John Baxter:

"Typically for [producer Howard] Hawks the characters quickly separate themselves into professionals and dreamers. The airman, the reporter he takes with him and some of his crew are professionals; the scientists, and especially their leader, are dreamers. Hawks's contempt for the former comes out clearly in the various exchanges at the base, science and scientists generally shown as being incapable of adjusting to the real world."

-- Science Fiction in the Cinema, A. S. Barnes & Co, New York, 1970.

I have never seen this in the film. What I find, instead, is a nuanced opposition between a community of reason and flexible thought (a community of soldiers and scientists), and one authoritarian scientist who prefers to work alone within his own assumptions, who considers knowledge more important than communities or individual human beings.

This authoritarian scientist, Dr Carrington, begins with an argument that most of us would find reasonable, and which, in the context of the film, is undeniably true:

"When you find what you're looking for, remember it's a stranger in a strange land. The only crimes involved were those committed against it. It awoke from a block of ice, was attacked by dogs, shot by a frightened man. All I want is a chance to communicate with it."

Later in the film, however, when the Thing is revealed to be a possible biological threat to the world, Carrington goes beyond this argument to stress that human beings are expendable:

"We've only one excuse for existence: to think, to find out, to learn. It doesn't matter what happens to us. Nothing matters except our thinking. We've fought our way into Nature, we've split the atom... We owe it to the brain of our species to stay here and die, without destroying a source of wisdom. Civilization has given us orders."

Carrington has learned about the Thing by conducting experiments in secret. The other scientists, equally curious, have kept in mind reasonable precautions against too quick an investigation without proper safeguards. When Carrington proposes an immediate examination of the frozen Thing, Dr Chapman mentions the risk of contamination by germs from another planet, and the possible risk of damage to these alien remains by the atmosphere of Earth. Even the scientists eager to learn about the Thing right away come to disagree with Carrington when they realize the implications of the creature's biology; they join the soldiers and contribute to the fight. Carrington's assistant comes up with a method to destroy the Thing, and Dr Redding offers a refinement of this plan.

When the scientists warn Carrington that mental and physical exhaustion have clouded his judgement, he ignores them. Still, he does have a point: no effort has been made to find a means of communication. In the end, he puts his own life at risk to find such a means, but without endangering anyone else. For this, he earns the respect of the soldiers, even if they disagree with him. Carrington's flaw is not scientific curiosity, not "dreaming," as Baxter would say, but a refusal to see his own limitations, and a disregard for the community of his fellows.

In contrast, the military leader, Captain Hendry, shows concern for his men and for the scientists around him. When the men want his ear, he listens; when scientists object to his actions, he apologizes, explains that he must have military authority to act on their terms, and then he requests that authority by radio. He does the same with Ned Scott, the news reporter: he imposes a news blackout, but also requests permission for the news to be spread. Hendry never assumes that he knows best, but he keeps eyes and ears open to events as they develop; in that sense, he is more scientific than Carrington.

Carrington is willing to conduct experiments in secret; he leaps to conclusions, and then sticks to them ("Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors.... No pleasure, no pain, no emotion, no heart. Our superior in every way"), but Hendry is an open leader, dedicated to a task yet willing to accept new information and to improvise. Carrington sets knowledge above life and community; Hendry is determined to keep his community, military and scientific, alive.

This focus on community permeates the film, and might explain, in part, why critics rushed to pan the John Carpenter remake. The camaraderie and cooperation of the first film was tossed out in the second, for legitimate reasons: Carpenter wanted to convey the breakdown of a small group, not the cohesion. I believe the critics, very much like Dr Carrington, brought assumptions to their viewing of Carpenter's film that distorted their perspective. The Thing was not The Thing From Another World, and it should have been reviewed on its own terms, just as the original film should be considered by what it reveals on the screen, and not by the reductive implications that critics have imposed on it.

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Flight From Complexity, Flight From Humanity

Long before the spinning of the World Wide Web, as I read articles about digital libraries and hypertext, I hoped that these developments would bring about a new age of thought, feeling, and literacy. I was wrong. For many people, the Web has become not a college library, not a gallery and museum, but a backyard fence for gossip.

Even a fence might be fine if an endless variety of people could lean on it, to share some of the world's complexity, but instead I have noticed a relentless desire for simplification.

Whether people apply the structure of abstracted and schematized wolf packs to the complexities of human character, to end up writing about simplified "alpha males" or "beta females" as if these artificial categories could explain anything about our lives, or whether people reduce the mystery and fascination of a woman down to a mere number -- "She's an eight!" -- so much interaction on the Web has become a flight from complexity, a refusal to laugh and cry at just how beautifully messed-up we are as communities, countries, human beings.

Beyond the Web, we can find antidotes to simplification, cures that have long existed but are often disregarded in Web discussions. Personal experience is one cure, science is another, but I can think of something equally powerful.

Art is created for many reasons, often reasons hard to define, but one of its many benefits is a recognition and celebration of human complexity. Art reveals to us that human beings are bigger on the inside, more convoluted on the outside, than the Web often admits. Art can make demands on us, not through difficulty or lack of accessibility, but because art can steer us away from reduction.

In our complicated lives, art's reminders of just how much more complicated we are can be disturbing, perhaps even terrifying, but that is one of art's greatest beauties. We are not simplified diagrams; we are people, and people need art.