Norman agonistes

Until recently, I hadn't felt much sympathy for the the Hollywood writers in their ongoing strike. I'm usually running late during the morning rush hour, and they don't help matters by, at every legal opportunity, marching (straggling, really) across the street I turn into to get to work. They don't walk against the light or anything, but the resulting delay is nonetheless annoying. (Full disclosure: I am the tiniest cog or an ineffectual monkey wrench -- I've yet to decide -- in a vast entertainment-industry machine, which itself is, if I may mix metaphors, an ever-smaller segment of a sprawling, many-tentacled corporate leviathan, but even assuming I was up on these labor issues, I doubt I'd have a dog in this particular fight.) Moreover, my modest work cubicle is within earshot of the most lame chants ever coopted (with minor modification) from the struggle for civil rights in this country. Even the "original" mantras (e.g., the comedy-oriented "No Money, No Funny" and the Housewives-specific "Eva Longoria, we write the story-uh"-- yeesh) leave the distinct impression that these writers' services will not be missed.

Everything changed yesterday, however, thanks to the Horror Writers of America. Now, before you incredulously (and obnoxiously) ask, "Horror movies are written?," hear me out. Ostensibly to cast out the mortal sin of avarice, the horror writers had staged, just outside the Warner Bros. lot, a mock exorcism of the studio that had some 34 years ago released that little demonic possession flick some consider the scariest movie of all time. I missed the religious ceremony itself but on my way to lunch noticed a habited nun among the throng carrying signs that screamed, in shades of forceful black and red, "Horror Writers on Strike" and "Out, Demons, Out!" I won't take the opportunity here to defend the once-disreputable horror genre -- most offerings indeed suck, as with any genre, and the recent glut has been particularly uninspired -- but I must credit these horror writers with a demon-stration (tee-hee, I could be a professional writer, too!) of authentic creativity best exemplified by the most deliciously worded placard: We Eat Scabs.

Now that I kinda, uh, care, I think the writers' grievances have something to do with the Internet. Like everything else.

Yours in solidarity & struggle,

Norman

Night of Nights

I've been asked what I'd screen as one of Turner Classic Movies' guest programmers. My first instinct is to program a night of Nights (featuring absolutely nothing by M. Night Shyamalan).

• Night of the Living Dead (1968): One of my all-time favorites. A seminal horror film and simply great movie, it ushered in a new cycle for the genre, one featuring an almost documentary approach, graphic violence and a bleak (read: realistic) view of human nature. If, during the Vietnam era, you had feared that the United States, if not the world, was going mad, that it was coming apart at its seams, you'd find no comfort whatsoever in George Romero's masterpiece. His zombies only accelerated the process by clawing at the social fabric along with everybody else. Some programmers might hold this title over for the midnight or cult-film slot, but it would be my centerpiece. Watch this space (without holding your breath) for a more detailed assessment.


• Night of the Demon (1957): Speaking of detailed assessments, I have already discussed this title, the British -- and extended -- version of the stateside Curse of the Demon, at some length here. This film, which resides at the nexus of horror and noir, features a guy (Dana Andrews) and a girl (the fetching Peggy Cummins, who, as Shandon notes, also co-stars in the delightfully lurid Gun Crazy) endeavoring to get to the bottom of a supernatural mystery and has inspired me to create, along with Shandon, a story involving those basic elements.


• The Night of the Hunter (1955): A wonderful American Gothic nightmare and the only feature-length directorial effort by Charles Laughton, renowned British actor and professional weirdo. (That's a compliment, by the way, as I aspire to that level of strangeness. And he married the Beard -- I mean, Bride of Frankenstein!) Shandon has featured this movie as part of her evening of noir, and I fondly recall the evening we saw it together on the big screen. The film is sui generis, occurring not in any real-world locale, but in a highly stylized and symbolic representation of the darkest recesses of our individual and collective imaginations. A place where we are frightened children fleeing a dark force as much as we are that dark force itself. I'm still haunted, in particular, by a lingering underwater image. Brutal, exhilarating and heartbreaking.

Finally, I do have a midnight-movie double feature. The first is Night of the Creeps (1986), in which these sluglike parasites enter their victims' mouths, rendering their hosts zombies (the homicidal, Romeroesque variety of zombie, not the lobotomized Britney Spears VMA-performance strain). Bodily invasion is central to sci-fi horror -- think Alien and a good portion of the Cronenberg oeuvre -- but Creeps is just good, silly, late-night, late-slasher era fun. (Cool tagline: "The good news is your date is here. The bad news is . . . he's dead." Perhaps not as uncommon as the filmmakers thought.) Many of the victims are campus Greeks, too, so there's that to recommend it as well. The second half of the double feature is Night of the Lepus (1972), featuring personal fave Janet Leigh, along with Rory Calhoun and that "Bones" guy from Star Trek. The plot is simply and breathlessly detailed on IMDb: "Giant mutant rabbits terrorize the southwest!!" I have nothing to add.