Snow by Ronald Malfi

Why does horror always have to mess with things that I love, like snowstorms? Can’t a few things be left alone? I’m expecting a zombie snowman to take over the world in the next horror book I read. But, I liked this. This was the first book

I read for this class, and it had me thinking for a while. The tension was consistent throughout the pages, the characters were wonderfully flawed and damaged, the monsters freaked me out, and the sense of isolation really tied everything together. The logic for the reason for the monsters, however, seemed a little far-fetched, but I will talk about that in a bit. 

I find that isolation is a common thread for these kinds of stories. It is almost a necessary ingredient. Wrapping the characters in a tiny maze of fear really heightens the tension. If you can’t go anywhere, you have to deal with the monsters at hand, or the reader gets to watch the characters try to dodge the danger. That is the fun in these monster stories/novels. The isolation (and the travel aspect… unmooring the characters from their homes so that they are traveling through the violent weather) makes the likelihood that Todd and his gang are going to get rescued seem unlikely. Also, explaining the lack of connection to the outside world via electronics hit home for me. We are so reliant upon our phones and whatnot that cutting us off from that mode of communication adds to the fear.

I loved the characters, really. Todd is a total fuck up, gambler, and a crappy father who was trying to get home to see his kids. Kate is also fun. She is super-spunky and she dragged the reader (and Todd) through much of the novel. It is great that we don’t get innocents to follow through the story. You can’t rely upon them too much, but they have enough humanity that you are still rooting for them. Fred and Nan were touching and lovely. I wanted to hug them both and keep them safe from the monsters.

I was never totally sure what the monsters were. That they dove into the humans and took over their bodies, which is super super creepy. And then those kids in the woods… ugh. Were they aliens? Scary zombies? All of the above? They seemed insectoid, and insidious. Scary. You couldn’t trust the snow, the freaking weather, because they appeared from the drifts. So something as natural as a snowstorm is perverted into a way of hiding some kind of freaky monster that would like to wear your skin.

Gross.

Okay so monster logic. The snowstorm isolated 29 towns and there was no national outcry? I didn’t buy that really. Even if the Midwest can be isolated, it seemed a little far-fetched and implausible. We are talking about monsters, so plausibility can be stretched, but I think it almost broke under the weight of that one detail.

I really did like this book. The skin suits, kids with no faces and the strange way the monsters appear really worked for me. I loved the characters, and the pacing and the tone worked really well for me. But the sad thing is that I don’t think I can read it again. It did creep me out, quite a bit, and I won’t look at Frosty the Snowman the same way again.



The Thing

I don't get it. There is such adulation for this movie, and I'm just confounded. Why do people like this so much? Is it because of the alien monster? The gross- out factor? The fact that Kurt Russell’s hair is amazing? (I also found it interesting that we watched two movies where the monster is an alien)

So let's talk about setting and mood. Using Antarctica was a brilliant move. Isolated, unlike like landscapes most of us see, and a vicious climate that adds to the tension. Who can help you when you are all alone on a continent? No one. The snowstorms and the constant threat of freezing add to the threat of doom. But I really wanted more.... More tension. More of a threat to their base, to their lives. I don't know how carpenter could have done that...perhaps slowing down the loss of the other people at the station. Overall I think the setting was used to push us deeper into their experience, but I really think it could have been played up more. Unlike Alien where I was unsettled from the first moment, I didn’t feel emotionally effected until the dog cage scene. The dog running through the snow being chased by the helicopter was brilliant because the viewer gets a sense of the scope of the place and that there is nothing out there. That being said, because of the lack of reaction to the dog’s arrival (wouldn't that be strange?) more so the crazy Norwegian, it took me a long time to get s sense of dread.

The effects didn't age well.  I try to excuse this, but then I remember how much I love Bladerunner, and that movie has aged gracefully. This one showed its age inn that manner. The continuity of the effects (mostly metamorphosis scenes) kept me from buying it, so while I got squicked out, I was not very scared. I just said, "Oh look, a plastic effect with blood." shouldn't I believe it more?

As for the characters and the ending. The characters seemed a little cardboard for me, but I realized that the metamorphosis and development of the Thing was more important than the characters. It was the monster’s transition and the “interesting” way it killed everyone that really moved the story along. Some of the characters were fun and charming, but hardly memorable. MacReady just seemed angry without a lot of motivation most of the time, but he was pretty enough to watch for the duration of the movie.

The ending leaves you with both a feeling of certain death and uncertainty. I don’t think you ever know if Childs is infected. When I finished the film I wasn’t sure I was satisfied by the ending. That’s it? They are going to die in the cold? Or Childs may eat MacReady’s face? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the most powerful aspect of the film – the certain uncertainty. There are no promises of a happy ending. I don’t know that I will watch this again. I think Alien was a better monster movie, but The Thing was entertaining.



The Wolfman by Jonathan Mayberry

This book read like a film, and I am trying to decide if I liked that or not. There is a delicate balance between what is told and what is assumed. I felt like the author assumed I had already seen the film so it was missing something for me. It is almost like a paint-by-numbers picture without one of the number filled in. The image is clear, the details almost there, but it is just off.

The pacing threw me a little. It felt a bit rushed, as if the monster was right behind me all the time and I couldn’t catch a breath to let the tension build up. I guess that is my big complaint – I didn’t feel much tension throughout.  Some of the revelations were nicely placed (the true nature of his mother’s death and where the lycanthropy came from). I wish more had been woven into the story about Lawrence’s emotions though. I always felt like he was acting how we expected him to, and that is a touch boring.

I think the characters were the weakest part of this novel. I never really understood their motivation and rationalization. Would Gwen really fall for Lawrence that quickly, especially given the creepiness of the family situation? I just didn’t buy much of it, except Lawrence’s desire to be welcomed by his father and the loss and guilt he felt for his brother’s death. I watched them, entertained, but I never connected emotionally with them, which is unusual for me. I fell like I’m missing something with this novel, that I didn’t get the whole picture, and when I read it again (to make sure) the distance remained and it frustrated me.

I know this sounds like I didn’t like this book. That is wrong. I enjoyed the hell out of it and read it in one sitting, chewing it up like popcorn. But when I finished it the first time, I forgot much of it. (I read all of the books prior to the term) The second read through, as I stated earlier, revealed little more. I didn’t discover anything new and was just reminded how fun but forgettable this whole story is.

As for the monster itself, I liked that its genesis was from a bite from the feral boy in India. Perhaps in that time, when the jungles were truly wild and untamed, a creature such as this could exist. So much was being discovered about the world, so many new things coming to light, that this is a perfect breeding ground for this kind of story.  But even in Victorian England, emotion is important, and I never got there with the Wolfman. Like watching a play on a dark stage, the sounds and shadows spoke to me, but I never got the beauty of the whole story and I am let wondering if I missed something. At least I have a reason to go watch the movie now.



Alien

For the record, you should not watch this movie while you are cooking. Chest bursting and baking = bad combo. I hate to admit that I am late coming to the Alien movies. I saw one of the later ones a few years ago and did not understand the hype. Entertaining and action oriented, it was hardly a masterpiece. Watching Alien I think I understand why this movie (and the series for the most part) is so well regarded. This is a balls-to-the-wall monster movie in space, and now I’m sure I never want to be an astronaut. Space is just as scary (if not scarier) than your creepy basement.

Quiet (notice the lack of music to guide your emotions) and beautifully dark, we follow Ripley through fear, self-doubt, a heroic attempt to save her shipmates and the crushing betrayal by the Company.  She is a unique female action hero, relying upon her mental strength to best the monster rather than her feminine wiles (although we obviously had to have the underwear scene) or relying upon others to save her.  The shipmates have a believable and tension-filled camaraderie prior to the Alien’s arrival. I enjoyed listening to them chatter and interact at the dinner table because how they spoke to each other gave me a clear understanding about the hierarchy on the ship, how the shipmates felt and related to one another and their mood about their journey.

The most striking thing about this film is the use of light and dark. It reminds me of a Caravaggio painting, just one that moves and doesn’t center on Jesus. The passageways and halls are dark and gloomy. Mother and the crew areas are filled with light and almost sterile. There are few dark corners or hidden areas for surprises. What interested me was the science bay where Ash treats Kane has both light and dark elements, which is very revealing about his character.  The camera’s point of view shifts from telling the story (just framing a scene) to interacting with the setting (when Ripley is looking for Jonesy) and revealing the panic Ripley feels when she is the last human survivor on the ship. I think keeping the camera tight on the faces of the actors was also brilliant because we don’t see what they see, but we see what they feel, and tension builds.  The ship is claustrophobic, and feels tiny, really, although the outside shots reveal that is gigantic.

I think the best and worst thing about the movie was the Alien itself. I knew what it looked like and how it moved, but in the movie it felt like a man in a suit rather than a swift and agile monster. This is, of course, a limitation with the technology at the time. Because we don’t see the monster for much of the movie, we are left to imagine the horrors it can bring. I don’t think the alien aged well, but that is just me. Also, the scene where Ash’s head speaks about the mission, that looked pretty jacked up. Again, going from prosthetics to real-life actors is always something that bothers me, but I looked beyond that.

I would argue that the real monster of this movie is the Company itself. It is relentless in its pursuit of a “weapon” to utilize and so sacrifices the crew of the Nostromo for its goals. It is a hungry animal, willing to trample and destroy anything and everything that gets in its way.  I really loved this movie, from beginning to end. I think the acting is superb, it is beautifully shot, and the tension palatable from beginning to end. It is enough to make me want to rent the next Alien movie, even if it is by James Cameron.

World War Z by Max Brooks

To say that I loved this is an understatement. I was emotionally moved, horrified, forced to think, left breathless, excited, bored, and forced to sit in my chair until I read the very last page. This is a brilliant take on a viral apocalypse and how it affects the world. What surprised me was how much was explained in the book – the degradation of wildlife (especially the whales), how the virus effected commerce and societal structure, how it changes expectations and exactly how much the human mind can take. The story structure, small first person accounts that were very focused and tightly written, enthralled me. You couldn’t get bored with the tone because it changed so swiftly from section to section. And honestly, I kept me going throughout. I was curious who we would talk to next? A soldier? A mother? A K-9 unit handler? A survivor? What would or could they reveal? And almost as important, what would they hide?

Framing social criticism within a zombie story is clever and it makes some of the assertions palatable without sounding too preachy (although there were points where I thought I was being hit over the head with a sledgehammer, but I have a thick skull, so I didn’t mind that much). It is a brilliant device, and because my blood was pumping and my brain was racing, I didn’t get tripped up by some of the dogma (also, I agreed with much of it). It’s dangerous to get overtly political or make social commentary in writing because it can alienate people. We hear all the time as authors that we must do our best not to scare the readers away, but I think this book has a few lessons that we, as Americans, need to be reminded of. We are, as the book notes, a country where we have forgotten how to produce. We manage, we dictate, but in terms of practical knowledge, we have very little. It’s interesting to be reminded how far we have strayed by a monster story. I wonder if people would be as keen to read this kind of criticism without the guise of a zombie novel to disguise it?

Certain sections really spoke to me. I’ve dog-eared the book so I can go back to read them again because they nailed me in the gut emotionally. They transcended the story itself and were brilliant vignettes that stood out amongst all of the death and despair.  Humanity is a strange and wonderfully complex race, and things like a total apocalypse will bring out the best and the worst out of us.  What is more interesting is that it will bring out what we need as well. What is needed is not pretty, not poetic, nor easy to listen (or read).  The priest who killed the infected so that their souls would not be damned was especially hard for me to read. That he would take the responsibility to end their life so that they did not become part of the problem with the infected was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Then the story of the pilot that crashed in Florida, guided to safety by a Skywatcher that may have been just a figment of her imagination – I actually had to stop reading after that one. It took my breath away. The last one that got me was the one about the retirement home for former K9 dogs, but as soon as they said “daschund,” I knew I was screwed. I’m a softy for the 4-legged fuzzies.

Were there problems with this book? Sure. But honestly, it will be one I recommend to everyone I know because I think we need to read more about our corrupted humanity, our lack of connection with the earth, the isolationism and nationalism that can divide us, and  there is always room for a brutal tale about a world over run by zombies.