Whose Horror Is It?

 

Their Likes --- Our Likes --- They Differ

You Tube hands me more of the unexpected, comments to go with highlights from Van Helsing, one I assumed was Universal-ly disliked since 2004 when released. How wrong was that notion came clear via salute for many a fan’s favorite classic of any horror made, and they aren’t kidding. Not oddballs or outliers but raves by hundreds, many of whom spell and make complete sentences, a congregation born of the nineties who came of age right when Van Helsing hit. What they teach is never to assume any movie is bad no matter unanimity long thought in place. Whatever majority we imagined is largely edged out since 2004. A whole new monster army has arrived to school us all. I wondered if reappraisal extended beyond Van Helsing, and so sought two more from Universal’s “Dark Universe” … The Wolf Man (2010) and The Mummy (2017). As expected, more up-thumbs than down for both. These people feel not obliged to respond like critics or a then-public too prosaic to catch the wave, but sure they represent a loyal order who I suspect outnumber those once stood before shrines of old-school Universal. Consider an audience enormous by comparison with what attended in Classic Era past. Even if U’s Dark Universe disappointed on first exposure, think of afterlife post-theatres. One fan at YT spoke of Van Helsing as never-ending loop on his TV, discs played thin with nary concern for narrative stumble or dearth of characterization, these no longer factors whatever a published reviewer at-or-past middle age might think.

So how long has this gone on? Looks to me like twenty years at least. Superheroes have more than reached that duration of dominance. Van Helsing, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy are really heroes in monster clothes, more “action blockbusters” than anything meant to be scary. Popcorn movies used to be a mildly derisive term. Not now, and not for a long time. Were story, structure, and character things that Hollywood lost, or willingly gave up? A popcorn mindset obliges us not to crave anything past the butter and salt. Action loud and confusing enough, let alone projected upon IMAX walls, does not tax in terms of focus upon narrative. I don’t say this to deride the taste of current fandom or knock things I don’t understand. Those who get no charge out of Van Helsing may not know what they are missing. These spectacles find virtue in chaos, no one left on production ends to distinguish “good” from “bad.” I wonder what screenplay instructors tell pupils nowadays. There was a time when rules stood fast, or at least everyone knew why weak movies were weak. Now it seems discipline of a kind Billy Wilder and other ancients preached is done, and good riddance to it. Background on making of VH, Wolf Man, and Mummy are everywhere at You Tube and told largely in terms of what went "wrong." Fans chime in to challenge any such notion, nothing being amiss among timeless totems of precious upbringing. If budgets went off rail, a director was fired, then another, panic delays against a release date that was non-negotiable, these are but brush strokes toward perfection. Hail chaos, but will it yield to profoundest change recent years have visited upon filmmaking?

What prepares writers to write, let alone write well? Surely schooling has much to do with it, though sources suggest verbal and composition are not just lost arts but forfeited ones. There was time when education denoted classical education, literature, poetry, the Greek, Latin, all resulting in a well-turned-out scholar, many of whom went on to contribute written arts of their own. What became of all that? I’m told phonics quit in US schools around 1930, yet it was drilled into me during second grade by a teacher who hailed from the nineteenth-century and taught as though we were all still there (bless Miss Finley for that). Also am informed that education after WWII was redirected toward math and sciences in response to Soviet aggression, humanities getting short shrift from then on. Can only imagine what computer curriculum has done to literary study, even basic grammar, though glimpse at Twitter or Facebook give frightful enough account. Film writers decades ago got training at colleges where communication skill was paramount, campus-labs where the best of wits had short stories and light poems published on site, resumes built from age eighteen to eventual place with live theatre, radio, or film factories in search always for those who could fence with words. Did I say eighteen? There were boys before a turn of the century who graduated Ivy League schools before they were sixteen … William Holmes McGuffey of “Readers” fame was tutoring students when he was thirteen. These generations knew writing, thrived upon it. They learned from reading, not by watching old movies and regurgitating them. Such are lost arts Hollywood knows to be lost, if not consciously then at least to extent of realizing there is little chance we will get any such expertise back.

Somewhere movies became go-to for excitation and little else, at least ones aimed at crowded cinemas. That was OK with producers because special effects could now disguise poverty of ideas. Got to where sophisticated writing was a last thing they wanted. It all makes sense. If you can render absolutely anything upon screens, why stand still ever, let alone emphasize people merely talking. Youngsters got the Van Helsing and Wolf Man they wanted, however critics headed for a scrapheap carped about it. Watch You Tube “highlights” from any corner of Universal’s Dark Universe and know delirium tremens without the drinks. If fans now repeat-watch these and intend to go on doing so, where do others of us go for comfort? For me it is increasingly to the dialoguers and gesture-folk, or moments so passive you barely hear sound, like what once were radical and even a threat to public sobriety. I watched Horror of Dracula again last week. It plays on a loop in my brain anyway so why not air images out? I’m convinced therein lie health benefits, this impulse toward quieter reflection. Consider HoD’s host of uneventful scenes, the crackle of fire Jonathon Harker throws another log onto, Dracula’s letter in lovely script apologizing for his absence, push of the tray and its clatter upon the floor. Dracula says “there are many volumes to be indexed” in his library, which makes me want to see more of that room and what sort of books Dracula reads when not occupied elsewhere. Van Helsing in the person of Peter Cushing is a man of infinite resource and subtle expression. He is highly educated, has a voice-recording device I would prefer to any modern derivation, wipes off a chair cushion he offers a lady guest. A blood transfusion he conducts is as precise as stakings necessitated by his profession. I wonder if after liquidating Dracula, Van Helsing remained behind to see whether the vampire’s reading selections overlap any of his own. Had Dracula relaxed his reign of terror, there is every chance he and Van Helsing would have become more congenial.

What once was the Universal horror brand is not to be recaptured. What they spent on one among the Dark Universe would finance entirety of the cycle as it unfolded through the thirties and forties. Extravagance breeds waste we’ve seen, and fear of botching the job for which individuals answer. More than a few blockbuster directors do not direct anymore. Demands upon modern filmmakers go way past reason. There would be less pressure defusing unexploded bombs. The system isn’t likely to permit another James Whale. Closest might be a “Best Picture” winner of late (2017) where the woman falls for a Creature offshoot in a lab tank, which union they consummate. Yes, this won Best Picture. Did viewers in 1954 wish such an outcome for Julia Adams? Oddly it was Fox Searchlight that released The Shape of Water, not Universal. I thrive upon humble sets and actors for horror films revisited. The best of Universal were done modestly and with modest expectations. Now it seems lives are at stake should something fail. Certainly, careers are. The Black Cat in 1934 cost $92,548 to make, The Mummy’s Hand in 1940 $80,000. Universal’s Dark Universe is well-named, for we speak of an entirely different universe between a Classic Era and now. But latter-day followers regard DU’s as marvels good as Marvel, and that must be understood, if not applauded. Once a thing ramps up, there is no un-ramping. I took a chastise, around when Van Helsing came out, for using 1963’s Kiss of the Vampire at a university show, had promoting stunts, even contacted a showman in Arkansas after seeing a ’63 trade article about how he sold Kiss. Drew a crowd alright, but boy did they flay the movie. Learned that night how what raised me happy was never going to do so for millennials.