Posts Tagged ‘Theater’
Media Update 7/9/20
July 9, 2020Music of the Week:
Weekly Update:
A Familiar Nightmare
December 2, 2019I had a nightmare recently. This, in itself, is not very surprising. I have nightmares all of the time like normal people do. Normal people have nightmares, right? I’m fairly normal. We’re all crazy. Anyway, this nightmare stuck with me instead of fading away with the sunrise. It was a dream about my old life, a life I left nearly a decade ago. It was definitely an anxiety dream. I have anxiety in my waking life, why should my dream life be different?
In the dream, I was visiting an old friend at a theater just before showtime. I was just planning to stop by and visit briefly but she was not there. That was concerning because my friend was a stage manager and was running the lighting board. (Of course, “she” was some vague stand-in for the multitudes of female stage managers I’ve known). The way stage management works anybody should be able to run the show based on what is called a “prompt book”. The show must go on so I volunteered to step into her shoes and run things for the night.
I was completely unfamiliar with the show but I tried to decipher the prompt book anyway. For those who do not know, a prompt book is the show’s script with an overlay of cues and notes needed to run the show and ‘prompt’ people to do their jobs. It is the show “bible” and should allow you any knowledge you need to put on the show. In the dream, the notes were not easy to understand or follow. I struggled to keep up with the show.
Meanwhile, I kept getting pulled away from the booth and the theater for multiple reasons. I was constantly trying to get back to my spot. When I got there, I struggled to figure out what I was doing. It should have been completely harrowing but it was kind of exhilarating. It was also flattering that I could still command respect in my own field. The dream had no resolution. Dreams rarely do. I woke with an uneasy feeling and went about my day.
(Sorry this was late)
Media Update 7/25/19
July 25, 2019
A Welcome Guest: A Psychotic Fairy Tale
The subtitle of this show is definitely accurate as this is definitely a weird show. It is not exactly Theater of the Absurd (which is hard to make sense of) but this was in truth an interesting fairy tale. The show is set in a post-apocalyptic United States which has been devastated by some sort of disaster but continues on. In the rubble, dormant weapons dumps left behind by the military sometimes detonate and take out whole cities. The government has clamped down on everybody and has imposed a sort of stable martial law in order to protect the rich from all of the homeless refugees. The homeless are assigned derelict buildings to live in. One family who has lived a hard but noble existence now has a neighbor for the first time and he is really weird. The show feels a lot like a modern fairy tale, with so many lessons and metaphors for our own daily life. The cast of this one was really great at comic timing, feeling a bit like a sitcom on acid while we watched their adventures. A special shout out goes to Wade McCollum who plays the title character. He is so good at acting almost like a cartoon, a madman in the style of Daffy Duck. It takes every bit of his physicality and his vocal range but he pulls it off beautifully. I definitely recommend this one.
Wrecked
Horrible things happen many times in our lives, especially if we live long lives. Sometimes those horrible things are caused by us and then we have to deal with that trauma but also the guilt of what we have done to others. These events have been amplified by the invention of the automobile. I think you know where I am going with this. In the middle of a bad night, a couple must deal with the horror of tragedy, their own relationship, their minds, but also some unexpected house guests. How long can you keep up appearances with everybody else when your world is detonating? How long can you keep up appearances with yourself? This show could have been really dark but it keeps things light. It definitely explores both dark and deep subject matter but the dialogue remains witty and reminded me a bit of Neil Simon. The show explores both the twists and turns our mind makes when dealing with reality. It also deals with relationships and what makes a good one and what people think makes a good one. This one felt almost like a Twilight Zone without any supernatural elements. It was definitely a journey and I felt so satisfied when it was all over and the dust cleared. I recommend it for sure.
My Lord, What a Night
In the late 1930s, famed singer Marian Anderson performed in Princeton, sponsored by a program for young black artists which she was happy to do to inspire the next generation. After the performance, she was barred from the whites-only hotel in town. Albert Einstein, who had attended her performance, invited her to stay at his nearby home. A lifelong friendship was formed between two people who seemed, on the surface, unlikely to be friends. The truth is that Albert Einstein was a fervent supporter of the American Civil Rights movement because of his experiences as a Jew in Nazi Germany. This play tries to imagine what that night must have been like, the meeting of two incredible people. It plays a little with history by also adding in Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, an activist, and a DC school teacher. Abraham Flexner is also imagined to have been present, a renowned college professor and education reformer. Ms. Terrell and Einstein’s activist spirits clash against the more timid philosophies of Flexner and Anderson. The show is funny and deep and explores humanity and the best ways to go about saving humanity from itself during some of the most pivotal moments in each person’s careers. I definitely recommend it as it has a lot of great messages and warm dialogue.
Music of the Week:
Wallows – Scrawny
Baby Goth – Mary
SonReal – Parachute
Lizzo – Boys
The Regrettes – I Dare You
Weekly Update:
– This week’s theme is “CATF 2019 Pt. 1”
– I finished Game of Thrones Season 3
– I watched more How to Get Away With Murder Season 1
– I watched more Losers Season 1
– I watched more Slasher Season 1
– I watched more Supergirl Season 4
– I watched more Riverdale Season 3
– I watched more The Flash Season 5
– I watched more Star Trek: Voyager Season 3
– I watched more Arrow Season 7
– I watched more Defunctland and also the similar Yesterworld
– I finished Designated Survivor Season 3
Media Update 7/26/2018
July 26, 2018This week’s Media Update covers the five plays I saw at the Contemporary Arts Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV. The festival has a few days left so if you are in the area, you might want to swing by and see what tickets are left over. Find out at CATF.org.
#NotSponsored #HashtagsOutsideofTwitter
A Late Morning [in America] with Ronald Reagan
I hate Ronald Reagan. I really do. He was President of the United States from the year before I was born until I was six. He was a joke of a president who had horrible policies that wounded this country and those wounds are still healing very slowly. He targeted black people, the gay community, and the middle and lower classes. He dumped money into the military and stupid programs that cost this country a lot. He also helped spread the paranoia that still pervades this country. Anyway, this show is about Ronald Reagan reflecting on his life as he nears the end. I was prepared to hate this show but I actually loved it. It is not a pro-Reagan show but it is also not an anti-Reagan show. Most of the show covers Reagan’s life outside of politics which included his college days, his radio career, his movie career, his military service, and his television career. The play succeeds in humanizing Reagan without excusing his crimes. It made me feel sorry for the Reagan at the end, a man whose memory was riddled with holes so that when he said “I do not recall” this time he actually meant it. It does dip into politics here and there and at the end, it dives headlong into his “achievements” in the Cold War. This was a very timely play to watch last week. If you get a chance, see this play.
Thirst
The second show I saw at the festival was with my second cousins and my brother and I had no idea what I was in for. This show is set in a near future after nuclear bombs have dropped on New York City and Washington, DC. The obvious result is a destabilization of society and a return to a more tribal way of life. The play covers one such tribe built around a well with clean water that starts to come apart due to domestic conflicts. A painful memory has caused a clash within and now the tribe must deal with and move on or continue to suffer. Things are brought to a boiling point and there is a lot of action and great dialogue. I really loved the worldbuilding the playwright was able to develop. Although the play needs work, it was a real pleasure to watch a mystery unfold until that painful memory had been dug up and put on display. Part of that was the great acting on display in this one especially the physical acting. Everything felt so real and that kind of turned my stomach in a good way as the show continued. The show also really made think about how a story is constructed and how it is resolved. I definitely recommend this one too.
The House on the Hill
Speaking of mysteries, this is another play driven by the slow and painful digging into the past. Two cousins meet at a lonely house on the hill years after they last saw each other. Together, they start to go through the memories that have kept a divide between them. Reluctantly, the two start to relive the memories on stage. They both see visions of their younger selves, dealing with the events as they happen. The show is very emotional as the tension lies heavy in the air. There is civility and politeness but the audience could pick up that something was very wrong right away. The question was: What was wrong? As the truth starts to come out, the show became a roller coaster of emotions and then it became a hurricane. The show gets very ugly but it was so powerful to watch. All four actresses did such a great job and I was left with a chill in my spine that had nothing to do with being damp from the earlier rain. All families have secrets and, although my family never had anything this bad, I could empathize with the trauma. Definitely check this one out too.
Berta, Berta
This one was a little bit of a throwback to last year’s festival as we once again visited the black experience in America. Set in the southern US in the 1920s, it is about how the system is rigged against people of color. It, like all of these shows, was also about memory and exploring the memory of a love affair that never quite worked out. The chemistry between Berta and Leroy was absolutely magical. They go from fighting to joking to consoling to loving and back and forth between so many emotions. The play evokes a lot of tales that I have heard and read previously about how the legal system railroads black men into the system. This time, the story took on an almost supernatural element that made it all the more frightening and dark. The play is a long discussion between the two as they hash out their differences and reminisce about the good times. Ghosts of the past come up and we learn what exactly has gone down between the two. The set was also just a few feet away from me as the space was very intimate. Although this one was a little long (with no intermission), I recommend it as well.
Memoirs of a Forgotten Man
In Russia under Stalin, enemies of the “Great Leader” were forced to perform in show trials. In these trials, the accused was forced to rehearse and deliver false confessions. These completely false admissions were an example of state-sponsored theater and the Russian people were supposed to nod their heads and move on. This show explores how difficult it is to hold the memories of what happened and what everybody says happened in your head. It explores how we deal with other people through our memories and also how we approach the world through that same memory. In a very dark, unstable time in Russia’s history, it is dangerous to hold onto the memories of what actually happened. Not towing the party line can be the difference between life and death. Lying and telling the truth to the right people is a way of life in a world of paranoia and a society obsessed with control. This was hands down my favorite play of the festival as it was big and left me with interesting questions and uneasy worries. This one also felt really timely considering the waves of misinformation that get thrown around in our more modern society. I highly recommend this one too.
Music of the Week:
Bryson Tiller – Sorry Not Sorry
Niall Horan – Slow Hands
Gorillaz – Sorcererz
Lindsey Sterling and Lzzy Hale – Shatter Me
Tone Trump – Thuggn
Weekly Update:
– This week has two themes: “Memory” and “Contemporary Arts Theater Festival 2018”
– I watched more NCIS Season 15
– I watched more Agents of SHIELD Season 5
– I watched more Supergirl Season 3
– I watched more Blue Bloods Season 8
– I watched more Luke Cage Season 2
– I watched more Glow Season 2
– I watched all of Joel McHale Show Season 2
The Very Bad Audition
March 5, 2018When we are young, a lot of experiences can both open our eyes and open paths to our future. In the end, nothing we do is really all that inconsequential. When I entered high school at Friends School of Baltimore, I was a total geek. Now, if you have read this blog you know that geek is a word I use with pride when I refer to myself. I was really into comics, video games, and letting my imagination run wild. I was getting good grades and, for the most part, I was pretty much enjoying school. However, I was still a shy and solitary kid. I had my friends, two of whom I had spent eighty percent of my social time with for years. When it came to public speaking, I shriveled up in what was probably a close cousin of a panic attack. My mother told me point blank that she was worried about whether I would be able to speak in public in the future. However, thanks to my younger brother, she had a solution.
And so, it was that I was sitting in the auditorium, waiting for my turn to audition for Tartuffe. On a side note, Tartuffe is an excellent satire by Moliere which is also called The Hypocrite and The Imposter. I definitely felt like an imposter while I was sitting in the old red-cushioned steel chairs. I had no desire to perform, I was just there to get over a fear. I took my turn up on stage, auditioning for the part of Damis, an angry young man. The monologue I delivered that day was intended to be angry, but I could feel my knees shaking and it must have been clear how scared I was. Director and English teacher Tom Buck thankfully saw that I was not cut out to be an actor and passed the role onto one of my classmates. Walking away, I realized that I did not want to act but I realized that I did not need to audition to be on the Stage Crew.
The Stage Crew met after school and on Saturdays. They welcomed me with open arms and it was cool to hang out with sophomores, juniors, and seniors. For the first time, I felt like I was actually in high school instead of in the fourth year of middle school. I started to form friendships outside of my little friend group or the youth group at church. I started to grow as a person and I realized that I had a passion for the building part of show business. When they asked who would run the lighting board for Tartuffe, I volunteered when nobody else stepped up. I ran that lighting board for the next four years. You got up to the board through a Spanish classroom in the rear of the auditorium, so they eventually gave me a key to that classroom. There were definitely some awkward collections where I had to walk through Spanish or Russian classes.
I eventually became co-Head of Stage Crew and then Head of Stage Crew. I also started to dabble in the design part of things as I eventually designed the lighting for each show. Although I was a little distant, I felt a fellowship with the cast of the all of the shows I worked on. Things really kicked into gear when we all put on Fiddler on the Roof and I teamed with Michael McVey as well. By the end of my time at Friends, I had kind of become friends with Tom Buck, sadly a teacher I never had in high school. My only regret was that I realize now that I never trained anybody to take over for me because I wanted to be the go-to guy until the end.
My experiences in Friends School Stage Crew inspired me to seek out more experiences with show business. I got into community theater down at Fells Point Corner Theater. I volunteered a lot of my time running sound for all sorts of shows. Eventually, I started working for Mobtown Theater and, at the age of 16, I joined their board of directors. Suddenly, I had all these new experiences outside of Friends School and new friends most of whom had graduated from college years earlier. Those experiences were magical, and I felt like part of the greater theater community of Baltimore City. It drew me away from Friends, as I spent a lot of my time in Fell’s Point rather than on campus. I felt a little more disconnected from my classmates which I feel like I eventually remedied but I feel good that this was a positive path that Friends helped put me on. In fact, that connection to community theater later sparked a connection to the school paper and helped reignite the love of writing that I still have today.
Of course, I then went on to major in Stage Management and minor in Sound Design in college. I took that degree and I got a job for years and years in a regional theater in New Jersey. All of that grew from one afternoon I spent trembling on the stage of the auditorium. I am a little sad that that auditorium does not exist anymore as it has been completely remodeled but I am happy that the Friends students of today and tomorrow will have an excellent facility to experience what I did. Not because they should all go off and major in theater but because going to that audition ended up accomplishing my goal. By connecting with the people in Stage Crew, eventually being in charge, and then finding my voice in community theater, I became better at talking to people. I felt more comfortable speaking in public and communicating my ideas. I do not hold back like I did as a young kid. For that, I feel very thankful.
Awards
January 15, 2018Awards are a funny thing. I am (barely) a millennial so I grew up in a generation that received participation awards. I received several of these awards for soccer and baseball leagues. They all had flimsy plastic tops and heavy marble bases. These awards are much derided these days as having made millennials weak as the opinion is that they celebrate mediocrity. Awards should be for winners, not for also-rans or so they say. I can only speak for myself but I am completely aware what those trophies meant. They were meant “thank you for not quitting and going off to do something else” because for me that was not only a possibility but it was a desire of mine. I knew I was never going to win an actual trophy for those sports because I did not want to. I did not want to play but I appreciate my parents guiding me into it because I felt the achievement when a season was over.
I never had any delusions of grandeur caused by getting a little plastic trophy. I do not think that any of my friends did either. I knew when I had performed well at something back then and I still do. I knew when I whiffed another at-bat that I was not an athlete. When I actually caught a ball at third base, I knew that I had achieved a miracle. I have humility when it comes to life. I know my limitations and I know when I am not interested in something enough to even try to excel at it. Sports was never part of the plan like it was for some of the friends that I grew apart from over the years in school. I was a nerd and an artist and I lived the life of the mind not the body. Still, I admired the people who did well in sports because they were truly succeeding at something. Of course, that did not stop me from deriding people who were so interested in sportsball.
In Middle School and High School, I wrestled. It was the first sport (other than archery) that I remember really enjoying. It was a solo sport where it is just you against your opponent like a high impact game of chess. I also liked it because with a little bit of practice, I was actually winning quite a few of my matches. Winning at sports without being carried made me feel good but, as with most sports, I eventually lost interest. When I eventually started losing more and more, I lost interest. I was facing guys who probably got up in the morning and trained before school while I could barely be bothered to attend practice after school.
I vividly remember what I call my retirement match. I went to a tournament (the name of which I forget) where there were only three people in my weight class. Because of this, I was guaranteed a third-place medal. I could practically feel my interest fading away as I was guaranteed an award. When it came time for my first round match, I walked out to the middle of the ring and faced somebody obviously in better shape. The guy looked at me and actually growled, an obvious intimidation tactic. Instead of being intimidated, I literally laughed in his face with glee. The match began and he and I struggled against each other. I did not just throw the match but the guy was obviously better than me and, in the end, he handed me my ass. He earned it and he deserved it because he was taking it seriously. Maybe too seriously but it is not my place to judge that.
In High School, I spent most of my time working in theater. I joined the Stage Crew in my Freshman year and I had a lot of fun and I worked my butt off. I volunteered to run the lights and then I started to learn how to actually hang and design lights. I started working in community theater in the Fells Point area, an experience which taught me a lot about theater design and production. I brought that knowledge back with me when I eventually became the co-head and then the head of Stage Crew at school. I started to design lights and I eventually volunteered to set up the audio for events in the auditorium. I spent a lot of time building sets and making sure that everything came together for various productions. When I received an award at graduation, I knew that I deserved it for all of the sacrifices behind the scenes. I worked hard but I still tried to say that the award was no big deal even though I was privately thrilled.
The same thing happened early in 2017 when I graduated from CCBC with a paralegal certificate. I had dabbled in paralegal work and it was clear that it was both fun and it came easily to me. I had found something that I was good at and enjoyed so it was back to school to learn about my newly chosen field. I worked my butt off at school. I took classes seriously and I turned everything in on time or early. I attended every class and I absorbed everything thrown at me. So, when I graduated with a high GPA, I felt satisfied and excited to get out in the field I am currently enjoying. When I received an e-mail that the school wanted to give me a Lamda Epsilon Chi award, I initially dismissed it. I thought that it was something everybody got like a participation trophy. When I arrived at the ceremony, there were only five or six people there getting the award. I was honored because I know when an award is sincere.
Theater of Blood (1973)
October 31, 2017104 minutes – Rated R for blood, gore, ironic murders, and violent creativity.
Working in theater is tough. I should know, I studied to be a Stage Manager for four years until I decided I did not really want to be in charge. Instead, I got a job for five years as an electrician, a carpenter, a lighting designer and a sound designer. I took pride in my work and everybody around me took pride in their work too. We lived and died by how good a show we could put on and how many people we could get to buy tickets. We wanted those people to leave at the end of the night and go tell their friends to go see the show too. Critics can be friends of that effort or they can be enemies. A lot of people, especially casual theatergoers, respect the opinions of critics and will abandon a show that is critically panned. That loses money for a theater and consequently makes an actor less likely to be hired. A bad review hurts everybody involved. So, there is palpable fear when the reviewer arrives at the theater and again when the review is published.
I seem to have settled into a pattern with some of my picks for Halloween. I tend to start to fill slots based on what I like and what I have done before. It does not always end up that way but so far there have been some constants. One of those constants is that the last two years I have reviewed a movie starring Vincent Price. This movie is this year’s offering. Vincent Price is a very unique actor. He comes from the age of film acting where a lot of the workhorses in the industry came from a theater or a live performance background. This trained most of those actors with excellent diction and high charisma. Theater also requires its actors to make everything they do larger than life so that the audience can see and hear their emotions. Therefore, theater actors making the transition to film must be coached to pull back and be more subtle. Therefore, directors rarely have to coax more out of them which feels like it would be much less work. All of this obviously helped give Price his trademark magnetically eerie voice which he could turn on and off like a simple light switch.
Vincent Price was not just a national treasure, he was also a global treasure. He had a beautiful voice that was unmatched by anyone I have yet to hear. I could listen to him read the phonebook if doing so did not send chills up my spine. Like Bela Lugosi, he was a master at making the most innocuous thing sound spooky. In this, we get Price as what he was, a brilliant but underrated actor. His musical voice echoes through most of the movie, either through dialogue or narration. Never have I seen Shakespeare used to kill people but it makes so much sense. He is joined on his journey for revenge by a motley crew who do not talk much but are comically insane. They are opposed by a group of critics played by actors who are very good at acting very posh and academic. Caught in the middle is Price’s character’s daughter who is played with absolute conviction by Diana Rigg. Additionally, there are also the police who join with a newspaperman played by Ian Hendry to try to solve the crimes.
This movie was so brilliant with its kills. Really, you need to have studied Shakespeare to some extent to truly understand each kill. I would compare the kills in this movie to another set of Vincent Price movies, the Abominable Dr. Phibes. His kills are also meant to be ironic and each one is also a literary reference. In that case, it was the Judeo-Christian bible but in this case, it is Shakespeare that guides the themes of each murder. However, this movie felt far less dreamy and while it was full of fantasy, it remained grounded and on point. On top of that, there were gallons of blood used in this movie. The deaths and the blood looked really good, especially for a seventies horror film. There are few fancy prosthetics. The effects seem to use a lot of great old theater tricks which makes them all the creepier. What is more, they take great care to add some comedy in with some of the deaths which makes the more grisly deaths all the more horrible.
Overall, I really loved this one. It was such a beautiful way to approach the end of this year’s Halloween celebration. Every year, I try to find a good Vincent Price horror/supernatural film to review because he was a legend. This year, I was also looking for movies to fit my chosen theme for Halloween. What luck that I found one that was not only focused on Shakespeare but also starred the brilliant Vincent Price. A little bit of trivia, this is also Vincent Price’s favorite movie that he ever starred in.
Stage Fright (1987)
October 31, 201790 minutes – Unrated but definitely Rated R for violence, brief nudity, language, and atrocious theater acting.
Stage fright is actually probably my biggest reoccurring fear. Talking in front of people is intimidating for many reasons. The least of those reasons is actually a fear of judgment. I do fear what some others might think when my ideas and personality are coming out of me in real-time. Nobody wants to say the wrong thing to the wrong group of people and feel that negative energy in response. A bigger fear for me is that I might screw up an look foolish which is related to the first fear but a little bit different. Most people are actually forgiving when it comes to verbal flubs or forgotten memorization so it is a somewhat unreasonable fear but it is that fear that keeps our concentration on point. The real fear is of the spotlight. I really do not like it when too many people pay attention to me. As an introvert, that sort of things is draining like being the only one under the desert sun. In a way, I fear success. If I succeed, I will have to do it again. As I have gotten older, I have gotten better at speaking in public and shaking off the fear.
I remember being a theater kid as an isolating experience. Theater is a collaborative art form but you are only collaborative with the other people working on the show you are working on. You spend time together during rehearsals but each person is fulfilling their role so there is not much time for socializing. I started on the crew which feels even more isolating because I spent a lot of time watching the show from an enclosed booth alone or with another person. When I joined the stage management team, there was a lot of time spent alone before or after rehearsals getting the rest of the work done. Time spent sweeping or putting tape on the floor in a completely empty and eerie rehearsal space. More than anything, the theater experience separated me from the world around me. Even when I went out into the real world, it felt alien. Non-theater classes felt different and strange and it was nearly impossible to make friends outside of the make believe fantasy world of theater.
This movie is about a theater group that is trying to put on a production about a masked killer. Unfortunately, there is also a real masked killer walking around. The movie is very eighties with new wave beats and a sweet saxophone. The makeup and costumes are clearly very eighties as well. The show is also supposed to be ‘edgy’ and ‘avant-garde’ which is usually code for ‘too up its own butt’ or ‘just plain bad’ for me. That is fine, I get to sit through the movie and not the play they are making. The movie has great production values. Lighting stands out above everything as everything is lit so well. I’m not sure how intentional it is, but every shot looks very much like theater lighting. Everything is a little too crisp, a little too bright which actually works for this movie especially since most of it takes place in a theater anyway. A new wave/synth soundtrack is very much in line with a lot of horror movies of its day. I also really liked the special effects of the inevitable violence. They are spot on and beautifully done. Each death is theatrical without being too over the top.
In this movie, we meet probably the world’s cattiest theater group. I have worked with several theater groups and most of them are fairly chill even during crunch time. These people are constantly sniping at each other. In my experience, you were unlucky to get one of these people on your cast but this show has pretty much an entire cast full of unreasonable people. None of them stand out but that is only because none of them are famous and they are equally good at setting up a playground for the killer to play in. The killer is largely silent but he is using the old faithful tool of the slasher film: a mask. Like most, the mask seems silly at first but the killer really makes it work for him. Once the action starts, the cast’s collective IQ drops and death is imminent. While I wish death on nobody, these Halloween months have taught me that they can really try to make it easier to watch people get killed. Watching people lose their minds with fear is really fascinating, at least in this movie.
Overall, I liked this movie. While some parts dragged a bit, there was never a shortage of action. The movie follows two Italian traditions that I am barely familiar with. It is a combination of the Giallo and Italian Horror subgenres. However, it did not feel so simple as that. The movie starts as a slasher movie but the last third of the film becomes more slowly paced and is much more of a tense thriller. While the acting may not be top notch, its melodramatic air definitely makes for a good change of pace for a horror movie.
Top 11 Favorite Horror Villains
October 22, 2016The following villains are my favorite horror villains mostly from film franchises. There are three that were also in books and one that was also in a play. These guys are my favorite villains and, on a sidenote, I wish there was more than one woman on the list. However, instead of talking about them generally, I wanted to talk about their motivations and how I identify with them somewhat. No matter what I say, I cannot condone or excuse anything these characters did. You should not respond to personal tragedy with violence or supernatural terror.
11 Jack Torrance
Jack is a great example of how the human mind can break if you apply enough of the right kind of pressure. He is arguably one of the most sympathetic characters on this list while still being incredibly sadistic and violent. He is a writer who just wanted to get some work done before his inner demons came out to play. It is hard to fight against that anger and resentment inside even if it is for the sake of people you love. When you lose yourself, anything can happen in the midst of that rage. Added to that, he was being egged on by a vortex of murderous ghosts. I definitely understand how powerful that anger is.
10 Hannibal Lecter
Lecter was a cannibal and a serial killer and you really can’t get past that. However, Dr. Lecter was also incredibly intelligent and had a personal code of honor he adhered to. More often than not, the people he killed or maimed were rude or jerks. They were assholes. Dr. Lecter had a clear picture in his head of what a good, useful person is. Personally, I can’t stand a bully. I would never kill or even physically harm anyone, though. I definitely have a lot of things that people can do that cause me to instantly lose respect for them. I wish a lot of the people who commit these things could disappear from my world but I would never actually act on that.
9 The Woman in Black
Regrettably, she is the only woman on this list and she might just have the saddest story of anybody here. She was not always a homicidal ghost. She was once a trying to get back to her baby when she drowned in the swampy land within a stone’s throw of her child. Now, anyone who sees her loses their child to the Grim Reaper’s bony hands usually by some impossible accident. It is horrible to feel cheated. That feeling gets even worse if being cheated hurts both you and your loved ones. You just want to burn the world down for daring to be so unfair. It is hard to accept the bad places we are put in.
8 Jason
When you take away all of the dead teenagers, Jason is hard not to feel sympathy for. He feels slighted for dying while those who were responsible for his safety neglected him. He wants revenge for this slight but cannot really go to a lawyer and file a wrongful death suit. Eventually, he just doesn’t want people in his territory and yet they keep invading his space over and over despite the danger. On top of all of that, they killed his mother. Sure she was murdering teenagers but you just don’t kill a guy’s mother. Really, he combines the motivations of Dr. Phibes and Jerry Dandridge strangely enough.
7 Pennywise
While Pennywise is probably the least scary clown in the history of horror clowns, I still like him. Pennywise is a great example of turning symbols of childhood into symbols of hate and fear. Pennywise just does not like kids. I often feel uncomfortable around children and sometimes I joke that I ‘hate’ children but they’re alright in small doses. Still, as uncomfortable as I can be around them, I really like some of the stuff that kids like. It is kind of a weird feeling sometimes to like all ages material but not really get along with all ages. Of course, Pennywise hates adults too so maybe we are pretty much alike.
6 The Leprechaun
The Leprechaun is a happy little fellow who lived with anger issues in Ireland. The trouble starts and the whole franchise is pretty much put into motion by people taking his gold. Unfortunately, he does not call the authorities to track down his stolen property and instead decides to kill for it. Unfortunately, I understand that impulse. I am fiercely territorial when it comes to my property. I get really upset when people enter my bedroom without asking. I get antsy when people handle my phone or go near my car. So I understand that impulse to get people away from my stuff. I do not believe that violence is the answer, though.
5 Dr. Anton Phibes
Phibes was undoubtedly a very smart person who suffered a horrible tragedy. He loved his wife and only wanted to hurt the people who had hurt her. I can understand that instinct. I don’t like it when people hurt me but I really don’t like when people hurt the ones I love. It can be too easy to lash out to protect or avenge the people you love even if it won’t actually help you. I don’t actually take action against those perpetrators but I find it nearly impossible to forgive. It is really hard to let go of that anger because letting it go feels like somebody is getting away with something.
4 Jerry Dandridge
He is possibly the most Eighties-tastic horror villain in film history. Jerry Dandridge moves into a peaceful Iowan suburb. He’s got a great big house, great furnishings and his buddy Billy Cole who lives with him. The only problem is that Jerry is a vampire and Billy is a… something else. They are killing people but they are really discreet about it. As far as we knew, he did not want to rule the world or anything. They just wanted to be left alone to do their own thing. While Jerry was indeed evil, I can definitely identify with that hunger for privacy. Thankfully, I do not also share his hunger for blood. I think a lot of us just want to be left alone. I also wish I was as smooth and confident as Jerry Dandridge and of course I am talking about Chris Sarandon.
3 Evil Ash
In the entirety of the Evil Dead franchise, it is hard to pinpoint many actual villains with names and faces but the biggest one is Evil Ash. Evil Ash, for lack of a better name, is born two different times during the franchise when Deadite magic gets into Ash’s body. He literally splits from Ash’s body like an amoeba and looks and sounds just like him. He is a fairly intelligent deadite (undead) creature. Really, when he is born, he is stuck on the side of the Evil Dead. As with all deadites (except Sam), Evil Ash is immediately drafted into the dark side and is tasked with fighting for the Deadite army. Throughout his appearances, he is only playing the cards he is dealt. To a certain extent, it is hard to blame him for being evil since that is the way he was made. He has all of Ash’s positive and negative qualities, he just ends up on the wrong side of the fight.
2 Chucky aka Charles Lee Ray
Sometimes, I think that Charles Lee Ray is my spirit animal. By that, I don’t mean that I am confessing to being a killer doll who dabbles in voodoo and wisecracks. Well, I do like a good wisecrack. What I mean is that I think Chucky and I might share a similar trait in our brain chemistry. I was born with Attention Deficit Disorder and I think Chucky has it too. He has a lot of the symptoms, at least. During the Child’s Play films Chucky usually has one goal and that is to transfer his soul into a human body. Sure, he makes a lot of assumptions about how or why he can do that but it is still his stated goal. However, he is constantly diverting from his task to kill somebody else. Hell, in Child’s Play 2 he takes the time to murder a non-sentient doll and then buries it. He has a deadline but he just loves killing too much to get it done.
1 Freddy Krueger
Imagination is why I love and identify with Freddy Krueger. He puts so much thought and work into each and everything he does. It is not just the killing either. His taunting is so well laid out that it’s a good thing the dead don’t sleep or else he would never get it all done. He tailors each death individually like some weird boutique/concierge murderer. Usually, his only audience for these morbid art projects are the victims themselves who are going to be dead in a minute anyway. That shows dedication. He must have files on everyone in Springwood because he almost automatically knows how to kill just about anybody he meets in the most poetic way.
The Woman in Black (2012)
October 21, 2014
I recently watched The Woman in Black. I actually started my usual method of riffing comments as they pop into my head but that plan died about three minutes in. I’m not saying that this movie is unriffable but it just seemed wrong after a while. This movie was too well done to really make fun of. I was actually really looking forward to seeing this movie because way back in the day I actually designed lights, sound and helped build the set for a stage production of The Woman in Black. (Most long time readers won’t remember this)
I realized that I never really talked about the rest of that experience. Like any writer/artist I shudder when I look back at my old stuff and that was a full six years ago. I was having a lot of fun playing with a new digital camera and I was genuinely impressed with what we were doing. I continued to work on the show and it was an amazing production even if I was usually pretty frazzled back when I worked at Tri-State Actors Theater.
The show was very intense work and I fell into my usual ten to thirteen hour work days followed by sleeping late. I built sets and hung and pointed lights in the late morning until the evenings. The set was pretty much just a giant false proscenium with a black scrim stretched across it. The structure was mammoth and it took three people to rig it to the ceiling with the cable and fittings we had picked. The lighting was dark and subtle and a great fit for a dark, gloomy horror story. I was really proud of all of that work because I had never done any work in horror before.
These long days originally left me doing all of the sound work in the middle of the night in my tiny, cold room that I rented in the back of a framing shop. In retrospect, I probably should have seen a lot of parallels between my late night, solitary work and the work Arthur Kipps was doing. Eventually, doing this work at night started to take its toll. Finding horrible recordings and building sound cues like “Horse and Child Drowning in Swamp” in the middle of the night started to make me a little crazy. I had to switch to doing the sound work in the morning and do the lighting work late at night instead. My psyche thanked me for it. Eventually we built a rich soundscape and true horror includes plenty of sound cues.
So after all of that, how did the movie stack up? I really liked it. Daniel Radcliffe plays a complex version of Arthur Kipps and gets a lot of mileage with very little dialogue. He has come leaps and bounds from his time in Dumbledore’s Army and has really grown up. The rest of the cast is spot on with a special nod to Ciaran Hinds who gives an especially moving performance. The voice overs for the title character were well done and held the right amount of grief to the point of insanity.
The story is a rough one to get through and I forgot how much it terrified me. I would warn those who are parents that any version of this story is going to be especially rough on you. The terror is mixed so much with tragedy, sympathy and deep, dark emotions related to being a parent. Themes include untimely death, revenge, grief, guilt, isolation and depression which are all incredibly heavy. The story is told in a straight forward manner in the movie with very little actual dialogue. The stage version has a framing device which actually adds a terrifying little twist but the story can do without it.
A little ways into the film I thought there was going to be too many jump scares and not enough real horror. Jump scares are nice for startling the audience and jangling their nerves but it is startling, not terrifying. The jump scares in this film are far more psychological and logical and pretty much none of them are the standard “Cat Scare” which have become so overdone in horror. The movie can actually be really relentless and my heart was pounding pretty hard in parts. The filmmakers obviously took a lot of care to go for a more literary horror than we’ve seen in bad horror movies in the past. Hooking us like fish, ratcheting up the tension and letting us go and then reeling us back into terror until finally we realize there’s no escape.
One of the things that I liked so much about the movie was the attention to detail. The production design was very intricate and most of the effects seemed to be practical instead of digital. I am not putting down CGI effects because a bad practical special effect can look just as hokey as a bad CGI one. This movie blended everything together pretty seamlessly but, as I well know, it can be easier to cover up flaws in the dark.
I would freely recommend this movie to anyone and everyone who enjoys horror movies and does not have a heart condition. I don’t know what I want to review next but it probably won’t be Victorian Horror. Probably.
Wolf of Words 