Return of the Space Horrors

In space no can hear your spleen!

Watching Stargate Universe's opening two episodes I was struck by the thought once again how frightening space is. It's as dangerous as working underwater and because of the much greater distances involved help is that much further away if not entirely out of the question. This is just as a matter of the man versus nature plot, though it must be further extended to include machines as a part of nature, making it man versus his environment. The nature of your location is consistently deadly, but only failure of your safety devices, your ship included, can end your life in most situations. It can be debated back and forth whether the meteor punching a hole through your ship or the ship's then unsustainability is the cause of your death. There is also the matter of which is more likely to be dealt with, preventing the meteor strike or repairing the damage.

Back when Star Trek: Enterprise premiered the first season seemed to be very horror oriented with a lot of panicked what is that quickly followed by how many are dead now and look what it did to him/her. Space was a very scary place because of the aliens, so many of which were menacing, and well, alien--admittedly they could always go more alien and you would in your own setting. This is what it is all about after all. Back in the Anatomy of a Horror Setting when I covered science fiction horror pairings, options for your setting considerations, I covered how the horror of aliens works and relies on fear of the unknown. Nothing is more unknown that creatures that have never previously even come into contact with anything you know. Different biology, different outlook, different beliefs and the only similarity an expectation that the universe is dangerous.

Of course you don't have to go out into space to end up on the receiving end of its horror. Lots of times the aliens come to Earth and wreak havoc. This is one of the least well done kinds of horror for some reason. Too often they end up leaning too heavy toward the science fiction or worse they fall back on a deus ex machina to extricate the protagonists, and the entire planet, from the alien threat, which is entirely non-conducive to horror. These are not bad movies or novels, in some cases far from it, but they do not fit the horror mould. Consider how much more horror there is a hopeless situation, or better yet one with only a small glimmer of hope in the form of great determination and likely sacrifice, weighing your own morals versus the freedom or even survival of your species. That's not just great horror, that's exciting storytelling.

Mood: spacey.
Music: Isle Of Avalon by Iron Maiden and Headswitch by Bruce Dickinson.

Or get MP3s.

Buy these at Amazon.com Click Images to Buy CDs

Or get MP3s.

The Horror Few See

Horror is all around us, yet much of it is not seen that way. This is not a new conceit, not even for me to speak of it per se. The example that prompted me to write about this topic today was the young girl from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. If you have not seen the movie all of the way through you want to stop reading now. I am going to spoil the ending.

Everyone knows the immediately scary bits in Signs. There is the alien skulking around the farm, the one caught in Reddy's house, the video from Brazil, and of course when the aliens try to get into the house culminating in the attack by one of the aliens. The demise of this alien is set in motion long before it's arrival in the house, long before its likely arrival in proximity to Earth even. For whatever reason, miracle, born with a hypnotic suggestion from her mother, or psychic precognition ability of her own, Bo Hess set all of those glasses of water everywhere in the house. I've never seen mention of the pure creepiness of this methodical, instinctive--or we are left to assume it wasn't thought out--process. Think about it. For years this little girl has been finicky about her water. Things start getting weird at the farm and around the world, and she begins obsessively leaving the water in glasses everywhere.

Somewhere between the unblinking irrational quality of the obsession and the inevitability with which it was perpetrated and then exonerated lies the real horror to this situation. It's easy to sit back and consider that the whole scenario is, well, almost heart warming. For starters it saves Merrill and Morgan--though Morgan also has his own deal going--and it's just a part of the overall miracle. Bo is cute, though on the odd side of cute given her I saw a monster can I have a glass of water in the middle of the night attitude. Back to Morgan for a moment. His asthma is a saving grace finally, but it lacks all of the qualities that make Bo's hand in the events so outré, so unnatural. It's like comparing luck to brilliant forethought ten steps ahead of the crucial event.

Here's a final thought to ponder, would it be creepier yet to discover Bo knew the importance of having that water there at that time and hid it all those years behind an intricate web of what essentially are lies and misdirection?

Mood: thoughtful.

Music: Gonna Buy Me A Dog by The Monkees and Breathless by Quiet Riot.

Or get MP3s.

Buy these at Amazon.com Click Images to Buy CDs

Or get MP3s.

13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009: Night #8 Xtro

This is likely the first real horror movie that I ever saw. I mean that wasn't on TV during the day. I don't remember seeing any at night by then. However I don't clearly remember any of the movies I must have seen during the day on weekends. When I first saw Xtro the format was videodiscs. They were before real laser discs, and before VHS, though Betamax had come on the scene and the store was renting a few of those too. For me Xtro is an infamous movie. I wasn't the only one my age to see it, but really, that said, we were all too young. I remember wanting to see Halloween 3 but being denied by my parents so a scary movie masquerading as science fiction was a good choice. That they never saw the nudity or gore was a small miracle given the number of times I watched it.

As much as I'm against spoilers, sometimes if a scene is early enough in the film I will let things slip. Xtro contains one of these things you need to let slip so that people will know just what kind of movie it is. For Xtro that scene is where a woman is attacked by an alien and within minutes violently gives birth to a full-grown man. To this day the movie still remains one of my favourites. It took what seemed like forever for it come out on DVD, finally doing so in 2005--at least in North America. Xtro was of course one of the British video nasties, though this time actually from Britain. Despite its origins the film bore credit screens with the old New Line Cinema logo and was one of the Smart Egg pictures; a pair of company names that stood for horror even before New Line hit it super huge.

Mood: fine.

Music: Distant Skies by Stratovarius off of Fourth Dimension.

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-7: Horror Invasion

Is it incredulous or inconceivable to believe that an alien invasion could be the driving force of horror? There have been numerous invasion stories. Most of them do not come across as being creepy, scary, horrifying or even particularly terror-filled even with all the screaming that tends to accompany them. On the other hand there are great examples that fit perfectly into the horror mould. The best alien invasion horror has two versions, each called Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It is no coincidence that the next famous example also has two versions--War of the Worlds. Both of these are large-scale invasion stories. This does not have to be the case. At the small end of the scale there is The Thing, a remake of a non-horror invasion, which covers a broad spectrum of horror.

What is the first thing that this kind of story requires? Does it have to be amazing special effects; ships flying through the air, death rays vaporising all in their path, or grisly alien metamorphoses, and gory experiments of anatomy? Those don’t hurt in the cinematic medium, but are not necessary in the textual medium. H.G. Wells penned War of the Worlds and it saw publication in 1898. The horror of the situation in this seminal invasion novel runs deeper than its movie representations. It’s not about the number of deaths, or the exact how of the deaths, its about the portrayal of them. Horror needs to be about eliciting that eponymous emotion. The details do not matter nearly as much as the way they are put together. Since it is about emotion the best option is empathy.

It is a fine line between science fiction and horror in an invasion story. The events in the science fiction invasions leave the audience to empathise on their own. The horror tale will, or should, help the audience to empathise. For example take a single death. Who the victim is defines the response a stranger will have to their death. Children get a stronger response than an adult; women are more sympathetic than men, especially a mother versus a father. To get the maximum response requires contact with the people who are directly affected by the death. A scientist witness to the destruction of the invasion has much less impact than the father trying to get his children out of harms way. This is essential to any horror, and although it is about characters it can dictate your setting.

Music: Invaders by Iron Maiden and Tommyknockers by Blind Guardian.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-6: Extraterrorestrials

Across the vast, nearly unfathomable stretches of space they come to deliver horror on the primitive, disorganised, backwater planet Earth. They are unknown, their intentions incomprehensible, and their arsenal of terror tools vast. As if that were not bad enough, watching the skies for their vessels and looking for little grey men may only leave the unsuspecting to fall prey to less intelligent but much more insidious incursions. This is just a general overview of the forms that science-fiction horror stories involving aliens may take. The first line of horror offence when dealing with extraterrestrials is as before, the unknown. Next comes the intimacy and scale of contact. Then there are the ramifications inherent at several different levels of depth.

Working with the unknown is a point that really deserves some belabouring. The first question to ask when starting the creation process is how apparent will it be that it is a story about aliens? UFOs immediately figure into this question even to the degree that mysterious lights in the sky will be an immediate tip-off unless obfuscation and misdirection are used, requiring that the audience not end up feeling cheated by it. The aliens--greys aside--are much easier to keep out of the spotlight by comparison. As with any inhuman personage aliens should remain unnamed-so until it is well obvious. Furtive figures with unnatural shapes in the shadows, seeing the results of their actions rather than them, and inexplicable events are the way to go when keeping to the strictest level of the unknown.

The big reveal, whenever it occurs in the timeline, begs the question of intimacy. Do one or more members of the main cast come directly into contact with the aliens? Is it at a distance or directly? Is it in a neutral location like a deserted road or something more frightening such as the science lab aboard their ship? Is it even worse than meeting aliens, and be experimented upon, than to be infected with an alien organism or virus? How many aliens are involved, or how many humans are affected or infected determines scale. The scale directly infers what kinds of ramifications will be a part of the author’s considerations. While a handful of people may be directly affected by the alien encounter an even greater number will be party to after effects. What of the bigger picture as well?

Music: Perfect by Alice Cooper and Dead Again by Type O Negative.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-5: Horror Boldly Goes

Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Event Horizon... its seven-year mission... to return from Hell... to seek out a new crew to torment... to boldly go where the Nostromo has gone before. Space is no stranger to horror. The basic conditions of the actual area known as space is dangerous and it is a seeming antithesis to life; cold, barren, and empty for the most part. For the longest time space was a great unknown. It still is a source of many questions and a never-ending parade of mystery. What is out there, waiting to be found, or ready to come here and find us? Science fiction that takes place in space doesn't fit into a particular sub-genre of its own unless it contains certain other hallmarks, which can then make it Space Opera.

Space Opera seems like an odd genre to which to add horror. It is historically know for its melodrama and romantic plots. It is also a heavily clichéd form of science fiction. By definition its characters, plots, and the civilisations, which inform most of the settings, all tend toward the massive, powerful, and grandiose. It is working in contrast to all of that where the best horror might be found. In keeping with Space Opera's past, horror doesn't have to be the only other genre added in, though of course such additions should tend toward being tropes and the like only. These additional elements can be from other science fiction sub-genres or from other full genres entirely. The use of vast space faring empires in Space Opera opens up several facets upon which to build.

The new frontiers of the galactic empires, governments, and federations lend themselves well to plots that are perfectly at home in Westerns, or Adventure stories. Those frontiers can be filled with horror. The series Firefly is a fine example of fusing Space Opera and Westerns. With the addition of the Reavers it veers straight off into horror. Cyberpunk is another possible addition to Space Opera and horror. Though lacking the 'Opera' aspects per se the movie franchise Aliens and its assorted book series' is certainly cyberpunkish with the company conspiracies of Weyland-Yutani Corp. Moving from Alien to its sequel Aliens moves from space horror to Military Science Fiction horror. Military Science Fiction often overlaps with Space Opera sometimes by necessity.

Mood: cold.
Music: Cyanide by Metallica and Satellite by Def Leppard.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

In space no one can hear your spleen!