American (Zombie) Gothic: Maggie

An almost ridiculously long time ago now, I heard the news that A new zombie movie was coming out that, A, starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin, and, B, was planned as a drama about a father and his dying daughter. An aficionado of sorts, when it comes to things zombie, I confess I was both titillated and confused (in equal parts). As most anyone must have been who has a basic, media-literate understanding of the words "zombie," "drama," and "Schwarzenegger."

It's been well over a year, but I finally had the chance to give Maggie her shot. Let me put this out there right away: Maggie is not a horror movie. Zombies have been a part of our culture long enough now that they are, truly, their own cultural icon. While it's granted most movies, books, and TV shows featuring zombies are indeed of the horror genre, the reality is, they've grown above and beyond that narrow label. Or would, if we would let it. While we certainly have zombie comedies, for example, even they tend to stay planted pretty firmly in the realm of horror. The obvious reason for this -- fandom -- has been more or less enough to keep media companies from taking the zombie too far away from where Box Office wisdom had it firmly planted.

So kudos, first of all, to the team behind Maggie, simply for having the guts to explore where else this particular bogey could hide. Drama was an interesting choice, but the right one -- if for no other reason than the very proliferation of zombie movies that made such a risk possible. Even as a fan of zombie media, it must be admitted that far too often the zombie movie, like most horror media, revels in death nearly to the point of glorification without often pausing long enough to allow the audience to soak in the horror. We settle for the cheaper thrills -- what's behind the curtain? Who's that in the woods over there? -- and ignore the most substantial elements of the fear these movies allow us to explore.

With Maggie, we get something different. We get a movie that, at its heart, is about a father's love for his child. It's not merely a movie about a girl (Breslin) who becomes a zombie. It's about a girl who is dying slowly, watching her body and her mind slowly betray her, worrying simultaneously about what's happening to her and what it's doing to her family -- emotionally and physically. It's about a father (Schwarzenegger) watching his daughter go through all these things and worrying about whether he ultimately will have the courage to let her go. It's a beautiful -- if depressing -- story, and one oddly, uniquely suited for exploration within the realm of zombie cinema.

So, zombie aficionados, I'm not really sad at all to say there are no exploding heads in this picture. In spite of both the subject matter and the headlining actor, there is little in the way of gore, and a surprisingly minuscule body count. Because that's not what this is about.

The traditional zombie movies shows you that the walking undead are scary and dangerous.

Maggie, with its dark social commentary and moments of slow, quiet terror, has the guts to show you what truly makes the zombie horrifying.

Friday Night Feature: Atom Age Vampire

Tonight's Featured Presentation is a cold war classic. While it is unlike many other cold war science fiction fright pics -- you won't find any irradiated giant insects here! -- it follows familiar mad scientist tropes to ask the question many have asked since before -- and especially after -- the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasake: does the end justify the means?

As you watch tonight's feature, feel free to join in the conversation. What worked? What didn't? Was it heavy-handed? A good story? Think of questions and comments of your own and post them below!

You can join the conversation in one of three ways: in the comments section below, on my official Facebook page, or by tweeting the hashtag #FriNiFeature.

And now, as they say, our Feature Presentation!

It's Psycho Day!! No. Really.

Arguably Hitchcock's most famous film (and even though I wouldn't consider it his best, it certainly ranks right up there!), "Psycho" was released to theaters on June 16, 1960.

Controversial, creepy, downright scary... but perhaps the best thing about Hitchcock's "Psycho" is that, according to all conventional wisdom, it shouldn't have worked.

SPOILER ALERT
Honestly, if you can read this blog, and are not yet at least familiar enough with Psycho to have a basic understanding what what happens, I don't even know why I feel a responsibility to warn you: you don't deserve it.  But, I think Hitchcock would want me to.

The plot was disjointed and disorienting.  The majority of the first act (if not the whole thing) consisted of providing motivation to get the first victim where she needed to be in order to move the plot forward.  End of Act 1: we meet the main character, Norman Bates.  Of course we don't know Bates is the main character, in part because so little of the film is seen through his own perspective, and in part because it isn't until Act 2 that the person we think is the main character is murdered.  After the murder of Marion (Janet Leigh), the mystery portion of the movie commences.  We meet the heroine of the piece (Vera Miles) at some point into the second act as well.  As I said -- and ask any film scholar in the vaunted halls of academia, and he'll tell you the same: Psycho just shouldn't have worked.

But in fact, it was these elements and more that helped to make it memorable.  The reason it reaches into the psyche and captures the imagination, and throttles your subconscious while you sleep is exactly because it fails to work within the framework of your expectations.  Chances are, had the story been written by a modern horror auteur like Wes Craven or John Carpenter (not to denigrate their work by any means), Leigh would have been at the Bates Motel in five minutes; dead in ten.  Miles would have approached the motel and house with an entire entourage of thrill-seeking teens, who would have been picked off one by one until our heroine entered the final act to face Bates alone. 

Instead, We are allowed to get to know Leigh's "Marion."  We get to understand why she does what she does.  We see her struggle with fear and conscience.  In fact, if not for Bates, it may have been a halfway decent crime drama.  And then, after her own decision point, Marion's life is simply snuffed out, mid-story. 

Unsettling, isn't it?

I was going to talk about the effectiveness of Hitchcock's camera.  About the neat little tricks he added to the film to add to the feeling of vague dread, such as under-cranking the camera to make the clouds behind the Bates house move just a little faster, and intensify the unsettling image created in the mind's eye.  About the eerie superimposition of Bates' mother over the killer's face to symbolize her control, even in death, of his twisted mind.  And for sure, it all adds to the atmosphere: plot devices notwithstanding, it's just a darned creepy film.

 But when you strip it all down, I think it's really the plot that gets us: the story of the fall of the beautiful Marion.  The truly frightening thing about Psycho, I think, is that it shows us, in stark relief, that no matter what we have going on, what choices we make, where we are or aren't going in the stories of our own lives... it can all come to a sudden end: bled out of the world, and circling down a drain of memory, in the blink of an eye and the flash of a butcher's blade.