The Funeral

      I first encountered Matheson's work through The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery episodes fizzing through an old click knob black and white TV in the backroom of my Nana's house. As a child, each story was a goldmine. I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies, but these shows slipped under the radar as Nana found them campy and my parents weren't around. As soon as I started reading Matheson's short story, The Funeral, my nostalgia senses tingled. I remembered this Night Gallery segment fondly and the story it is based on I enjoyed even more.

      Matheson managed to poke a bit of fun at the pop culture monster while also making social commentary on the business of death in this piece. The premise of the story is simple and straightforward; a vampire client, Ludwig Asper, requests funeral services for himself from Morton Silkline. It is the way that Matheson presents his characters that makes the tale stick to the reader.

     Anper's funeral guest prove to be comical as they are stereotypical monster cliches. The hunchbacked Igor (written in as Ygor) speaks as one would expect from the Universal classic version of Frankenstein. A werewolf character in a hurry to hunt. A witch complete with feline familiar and pointy hat. The whole affair presided over by a Vampire from the Carpathian area (which isn't even a veiled nod to Dracula, it's a giant neon sign). As this was written in 1955, it makes sense that Matheson would want to have a bit of fun at the mega monster movies that have become cliched classics from the 1930's through the 1950's. No doubt these versions had become the established idea of the monster at the time and Matheson takes advantage of that popularity.

     The beauty of these characters is in the description, or rather lack thereof.  Matheson gives a skimp description of the monsters and utilizes dialogue and action to cement their personalities. There is enough detail for the reader to gather Jenny is a witch without Matheson having to go into detail of her costume or discuss ever wart on her face. This way the reader can fill in the monsters themselves, making the experience personal and keeping the plot moving along at a solid pace.

     The social commentary of the piece is centered on Silkline. He is portrayed as the typically greedy man making money from funerals. Through the whole ordeal even in the end when he is approached by a second monster client, he maintains his monetary motivation. Throughout the piece the word 'Tasty' is repeated several times in reference to the service. To me, that word pulled the story together. People often speak of 'Tasteful' events and this extends to funerals. When I hear someone say that the funeral had been tastefully done, I immediately think they mean that someone spent a great deal of money on it. Matheson twists this. The monsters feel the funeral is 'Tasty' as they are more motivated by a meal (likely human) than money or social status.

     Silkline is making a meal of funerals himself. He preys on the grieving, charging a great deal for a spectacle that has become tradition. This is reflected in the display of Asper's service. He spends an exorbitant amount for his friends to see him lying in a coffin and have them mourn his passing. The satire here is that this display doesn't alter anyone's situation. He is still dead (or rather undead) and his friends bicker around him, probably in a similar fashion as they normally do. Although Asper insists this is important and serious to him, it is overall money thrown at the wind. This is commentary on the modern business of death. A funeral can cost several thousands of dollars for a standard service and a ridiculous amount for an elaborate one. I couldn't help thinking Matheson was making a point at how silly it is to spend so much on a funeral. On the other hand, maybe I'm reading far too much into the story.

      Overall, I found The Funeral a fun read. Easy to digest with interesting characters in an unusual situation. Well work the few minutes it will take to read it.

I Am Legend

         

           I Am Legend by Richard Matheson was on my ‘to read’ pile for quite some time. Considering Matheson had penned some works I’m quite fond of, such as What Dreams May Come and numerous classic Twilight Zone episodes, I had high hopes for his take on the lone survivor battling against legions of vampires. I was disappointed. The story didn’t engage me and the obvious sexism made it a difficult read to push through.

            As with much of Matheson’s work, this book is character intensive. The plot revolves around Robert Neville’s external battle with his mutated vampiric neighbors and his internal battles with his rage and sexual desire. It’s likely the story lacked appeal to me as I didn’t care much about the character of Neville. He is the alpha male banging his chest in every sense, conquering every facet of stereotypical manhood from foraging for materials to construction to physical altercation to scientific discovery. Neville is the concept of manliness amplified to an extreme that creates a self-contained cocoon of male pleasures including steak, whisky, and never stale tobacco.

            Neville’s main weakness is another male stereotype: his dependence on alcohol to suppress his emotions. This is reasonable considering all the turmoil the character has been through. However, his alcoholism isn’t impactful enough to keep him from completing the difficult task of surviving. In fact, he manages to keep up his defenses, kill off vampires, find supplies, and study complex theories all while being inebriated. A hard feat for me to swallow as realistic.

            These machismo elements in themselves would not be as off putting if they were consistent through the story. At some points, Neville is the everyday blue collar man working diligently to keep his defenses up and survive with his tools and self-preservation skills. Sometimes, he is a warrior able to brutally dispatch the sleeping vampires during the day and battle them when necessary. Then, suddenly he is an intellectual that enjoys classical music and manages to figure out the source of the plague through nothing more than books and experimentation. These different identities don’t mesh well together. At times, he is rather dense. For example, he is able to fend of the vampires with crosses and garlic and dispatch them with stakes (all of which me figured out through vampire mythology) yet misses the basic premise of sunlight as a weakness to his enemies. He has to accidently destroy a vampire by sunlight to make that connection. Rather unlikely for a man who later is able to piece together the biological basis for vampirism. He manages to fight off multiple vampires in a scene to get into his house with a hangover but can’t catch a wounded dog in another. Neville despises Ben Cortman for threatening his survival or enjoys the combative relationship like a hardened solider depending on his mood.

The bigger issue with the character for me is his sexist take on women. All the women in this book are either saints that needs protecting or the whore out to get him. His wife, Virginia, and their daughter, Kathy, are flat characters that have no distinct personality. Neville never misses something specific about either of them. He expresses his heartache but never what is unique about them to cause it. Does he miss conversations with his wife? Does he miss the way his daughter hummed when she was happy? Any endearing quirks they had? Neville never supplies any such particulars. Flashbacks show the interacts as a means to show the reader Neville is a good husband concerned for his wife and a devoted father that checks on his sleeping daughter. Yet these scenes give no insight on the women he laments losing. They are reduced to mere plot devices to give Neville inner conflict. Their deaths haunt him not because they meant something to him as individuals but because they belonged to him.

The vampire women are portrayed as temptresses that prey on his near uncontrollable lust. He blames them for his desire. He acknowledges his urge to rape them and yet brushes it off. This is forgivable. After all, they are intended to be monstrous representations of women in vampire form. Yet this malicious femme fatale view extends to the final female introduced in the book, Ruth, in an attempt to make his treatment of her acceptable. After chasing her down and forcing her into his house, Neville responds to her with distrust and cruelty. He regards her with contempt and is disgusted by any “feminine gesture” or “typical feminine question” even discounting oddities in her story and behavior by thinking “she’s just a woman.” He contemplates killing her before checking her blood for infection as he is unsure he even wants a companion and doesn’t find her figure attractive. Furthermore, Ruth is portrayed as the catalyst to Neville’s demise. Even as she is shown trying to help him, it is veiled through a one sided romantic interest in him that implies she is emotionally weak.

I do want to mention that much of my issue with the book in regards to Neville’s character and the portrayal of women may be in part due to personal bias. As a rather feminine woman, Neville is nearly impossible for me to empathize with. Even if parts of his plight I could understand and sympathize with, I couldn’t form any bond that would allow me to care about him. At several points in reading I realized I wasn’t frightened because I couldn’t care less if the man lived or died. The depictions of women were specifically frustrating as a woman. That bias is hard to push aside since it a significant part of how I view myself. Each woman he treated poorly I associated with myself.

My interpretation may be colored with presentism as well. I had to remind myself that this was written in the 1950’s. During this time period, Matheson’s take on men and women is not unusual. Men worked and held a dominant leadership role. Women were submissive and remained in a domestic role. The parts that bothered me in this story were likely accepted views at the time. It’s also quite possible I’m simply not the audience for this book.

My biggest complaint is the weak structure of the narrative. The ending had a great theme and the potential to create a strong statement. It fails to make that impact as there isn’t the foreshadowing and focus on those themes until the end. As it is, Neville is driven by survival and his quest to uncover the logical reasons for the plague. There is no foreshadowing that any living vampires had been self-awareness or had begun building a new community. Any thoughts on the humanity of the vampires or what it means to be a normal part of society are minimal at best throughout the piece. Then we have a sudden twist that makes a point about social structure and what it means to be an outsider. As a writer, it felt to me that Matheson had written himself into a corner and pulled out the twist ending as a way to give Neville’s journey some meaning. 

The Same Story New Again

       Humanity is keen on the comforts of the familiar. At the same time, we constantly strive to experience something new. This conundrum is especially evident is storytelling. The same themes, tropes, and plot structures are reused throughout history. The key is that the storyteller has to make these old elements fresh with something new for the audience.

     Consider the classic Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare beloved play has been re-imagined for hundreds of years. The star-crossed lovers inspired West Side Story among countless others. The story of the couple doomed by their circumstances has become embedded into our culture so deeply the very mention of the names Romeo and Juliet conjure emotions within us. It seems we never tire of the story.
      That being said, there is a point when the familiar becomes cliche and dull. Perhaps it has been revisited to recently and the appeal is gone or perhaps society at the time doesn't resonate with it. The tricky thing as a storyteller is to feel out the audience and strike when the irons hot, so to speak.
      There is a recent explosion of remakes being made in Hollywood. A new version of Stephan King's It, talk of a Clue remake, and a re-imagining of the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show on Fox (perhaps they are huge Tim Curry fans). Not everyone is happy to see these stories redone. Internet backlash aplenty. The Ghostbusters reboot hit theaters to mixed reviews and ultimately didn't live up to the profit demand of the studio who had hoped for an epic pop culture boom mirroring the one the original series created.
       Is Hollywood taking the audience's desire for familiar too far? It's a question worth thinking about. Most of these original titles aren't old enough to be forgotten by the modern audience and many cling to a purist view of the original version. To recreate the story exactly with different actors on a new set will be redundant and boring. Change too much, and the audience may claim the new version ruined the story. It seems a great risk for studios to make when there are hundreds of scripts and books waiting to be brought to the big screen.
       Personally, I think it would only be worth redoing an older classic if it can be revived in a manner that fits the current social climate. Of those I mentioned, I feel the new Rocky Horror may fit the bill. As much as I love the original (I spent many a midnight time warping at the theater), the recent attention to the LGBTQ community gives this particular story a new context. Having the talented Laverne Cox tackle the role of Frankenfurter provides on opportunity for the community to take what was once considered taboo out into the everyday. Or, it could be another remake flop. I guess we will have to wait and see.

The Killing Joke and All It's Joker Goodness

 

*Spoiler Warning*

      I may not be much of a comic book enthusiast but Batman 's arch nemesis the Joker hold a special place in my warped little heart. The Joker is  boldly psychotic in an extreme that is not only terrifying yet surreal. In my youth, I devoured anything I could get my hands on featuring the villain after I was introduced to his sadistic charisma through Batman: The Animated Series. Imagine my delight in discovering that an animated movie was recently made of the classic one shot comic Batman: The Killing Joke written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. I was practically in full blown fan girl mania once I heard Mark Hamill was returning to voice the character.

       It's been well over a decade since I've read the graphic novel, but the story has left quite a stain on my memory. Many argue The Killing Joke is the quintessential Joker story. I'm apt to agree with them. Here is the Dark Knights rival in full grotesque glory. To briefly summarize, the story focuses on the Joker's attempt at driving Commissioner Gordon insane and Batman's quest to thwart him, while simultaneously reveling a possible origin story for the Clown Prince. 

      First, the negatives. The animated feature remains fairly true to the original comic, although an opening chapter is added to give Batgirl, Barbra Gordon, more of a role than merely the victim. This opening was lacking, in my opinion. Rather than boost Barbra up into a strong female character that meets tragedy, the opening story line only reinforces her helplessness by giving her a romantic sob story with her mentor, Batman. The sex between the two is unnecessary and overall does nothing to soften the 'fridging' of Barbra later on when the Joker shots and cripples her. I was hoping for a stronger Barbra in this version.

        Another missed opportunity in the film is in the animation style. It looked like a mix between the  original graphic novel and the more cartoonist animated series. With animation it would have been possible to get a gritter, darker appearance to match the story. This may be more due to budget restraints than artistic choice but it still left me wanting more visually.

       On to the positives. The horrific nature of the tale is kept intact. What makes this particular story so powerful is how it draws parallels between Batman and the Joker's 'one bad day' that transformed them into their current forms. This is a rare glimpse into the 'why' behind the Joker's chaos and this version doesn't skim. Nor does this version attempt to cushion the extreme lengths the Joker goes to prove his point.

      The jewel of this film is Hamill's performance. Every syllable uttered by the Joker brings the character to life. He is so immersed in the role that it's impossible not to believe the Joker is a breathing human walking the shadows. Quite possibly, this is the pinnacle of his long career as the infamous character.

      Final thoughts: Well worth a view if you are a fan of the dark and twisted or a Batman buff. Feel free to skip the opening added story line (you don't need to see it for the actual good stuff). Turn the volume up for the infectious Joker laughs and the lights off for the creepiness.

Where to Begin...

      Writers write. Bloggers blog. I wonder if a writer is a natural blogger? My past experiences with blogging make me doubt that. Spending the wee hours of the morning polishing up a story, I will happily do. Maintaining a blog is another matter. This doesn't came natural for me. Perhaps this is due to decades of keeping a private journal which makes such an open format seem foreign. Or maybe I have some yet undiscovered form of social anxiety that only applies to online communications. More likely I am simply dragging my feet. Everyone blogs and the rebel in me wants to plaster on some black lipstick and yell "you're not the boss of me, Internets!"
      As much as the fabulous outsider persona (and some black lipstick) sound lovely, I must acknowledge there are perks to this whole blogging thing, especially for a writer. The day of writers hiding in relative anonymity have long since been dead and buried. Today's writers engage online. So, little miss rebel is going to have to step aside and let adult me make a good first impression, or at least an honest one.
      I'm challenging myself here. I don't claim to be a blogger expert or even have a focused theme. I'm simply going to keep putting something out here. Expect book and movie reviews, random thoughts, and possibly some bits of interesting information I come across. Welcome to my inner world. Be afraid, be very afraid.