30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night
by Steve Niles
Illustrated by Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night had a brilliant concept. After reading it I did some research on the author and the storyline, and found out that it started life as a screenplay - and I think that shows in the final product. It felt more like a story-board for a longer piece than a complete novel. Length is a factor - it is short enough that I re-read it on my lunch break - but the pacing is also extraordinarily fast. The month of darkness flies by, and the reader misses out on a lot of the tension and dread that could have been built up in a longer piece or a different medium.

I have conflicting opinions about the artwork - it was difficult to make out what was meant to be happening, and there was so much black on each page. At the same time, the ephemeral style suited the wintery setting, and there were some really well done individual panels. The style of the artwork left things very murky and undefined - there weren’t a lot of hard edges or obvious features. The pit of burnt cell phones, for example, has only six cell phone shapes in it, and only three are clearly phones. Faces were often obscured. Teeth and noses were really some of the only well defined features. Periodically small print words would appear in the images, which I found distracting and borderline annoying - the page introducing Vincente and his two assistants naming each with small text hovering over their heads, for example, or the page when vampire-Eben has the words "badass time" hovering behind him. It gave those panels a rough draft feel, like it was an artist’s conception for what the finished page would look like instead of the final product itself.

The vampires of 30 Days of Night are stereotypical in some ways - superior strength and speed, invulnerability except a weakness to sunlight. They are much more brutal than some other vampire depictions. Their facial structure is unique - the black eyes and rows of teeth bring to mind human sharks, with snake tongues. The strength of these monsters is such that they effectively control the town from the moment they arrive. The scares come mainly from gore, perhaps at the cost of building tension. I think the things that would frighten me the most about this type of monster come from empathizing with the survivors - the constant hiding, the shock of seeing attacks on others, the unending tension from knowing you couldn’t win a direct conflict. This was absent from this book because of the length and pacing. Everything happens so fast you don’t get to read the day to day survival. The whole siege of Barrow may as well have happened in a single day. Then again, focusing on a gradual build up of tension can push the monsters into the background, which was a problem in I am Legend and Breeding Ground. I’d like to think there’s some sort of happy medium somewhere.

There is a minor plothole with the end of the story - Eben is able to undergo his transformation without losing his humanity, but another survivor who is turned immediately becomes a bloodthirsty monster. I wouldn’t have questioned it if not for the scene with the other survivor - I’d be willing to believe the vampires in Barrow are the ones who really enjoy being vampires and get off on the ultra-violence, whereas the quiet, contemplative vampires probably stayed home. But the scene where Ted turns and instantly becomes bloodthirsty and crazed implies the vampires have no control over this - which in turn contradicts Vincente’s apparent restraint and Eben keeping his humanity. It made the vampires more akin to zombies, and not necessarily in a good way. Part of the appeal of these monsters is that they are just as cunning and clever as the humans are.

Those things aside, this concept was well done and the overall plot was totally believable for me - vampires come out of hiding for a bit of debauchery and murder because it’s the only place and time they could possibly get away with it. The subplot with the helicopter is obviously only there to set up a sequel, which I have not yet read. I am hoping that it will be a little longer and a little bit slower paced. I’m also looking forward to seeing how the story was changed for the film version, which is next on my netflix queue.

Rawhead Rex

Rawhead Rex
by Clive Barker

Saturday night I read the short story Rawhead Rex, and Sunday morning I surfed around a little and found/watched the 1986 film by the same name. Both left me with the same question.

Why does Rawhead do what he does?

It isn’t necessarily that he lacked motivation. It was that the motivation was part and parcel of his existence. Rawhead’s only purpose in existing is to rape, kill, and destroy. In Barker's words: "He lived in the eternal present of his hunger and his strength, feeling only the crude territorial instinct that would sooner or later blossom into carnage." He’s not fulfilling needs by doing it. He defiles whatever he comes across, unless it is a lady having her lady-time.

More on that later.

The name for the creature seems to come from a figure in British folklore dating back to the early 1700s, which was used as a boogey man to frighten children. But the figure from the book has little in common with this incarnation - instead, Rawhead more closely resembles the giants from Welsh mythology. He is effectively immortal, hugely powerful, brutal, and eats children. Or, to be more accurate, he prefers children: he’ll eat anybody.

Rawhead is kind of unusual in that his lack of meaningful motivation is part of his character - it is intentional. There is an image that crops up for me in fantasy settings quite a lot. The evil king, sitting on his throne made of skulls, killing his lieutenants every so often and turning the countryside into a desert. What bugs me about that kind of character is that there’s never any reason to do those things - it’s just a way to show they are evil, like wearing black or having a spooky helmet. A basic thing about thinking creatures is that we all think what we’re doing is justified. Even if we’re doing something awful, we think deep down that it is the right thing to do in the circumstances. That’s why we do it. Those characters don’t have internally consistent motivations, and neither does Rawhead. But where I find it annoying in other circumstances, here it works. Rawhead doesn’t think in those terms because he’s a force of nature, not a rational creature. For this type of monster it doesn’t occur to ask “why am I breaking everything in the house? I could use some of this stuff”. He breaks it because it’s there.

Rawhead is sort of the ultimate monster - he’s a weird blend of animal and man with a totally foreign way of thinking. Presenting him is a balancing act - but it’s done well, and I think he is a compelling figure. Making him a figure out of the past helped enormously with distancing his thinking process from what we’d think of as ‘normal’.

Now that’s not to say the story was perfect. Making Rawhead afraid of menstruating women was an odd choice, at least to me. I understand Barker was setting up a parallel for women as ‘creators’ to be the opposite of Rawhead’s pure destruction, but it just seemed like a reach, considering his willingness to perform rape and his food of choice. I also objected strongly to the way some characters responded to Rawhead, particularly Declan. Setting Rawhead up as a figure that people would worship pulled me out of the story. It is an idea that comes up in many of the stories in Books of Blood, and each time I have been bothered by it. I can’t fathom of someone seeing a horrible monster and thinking the best course of action is to pray to it. Especially if that involves being peed on.

Interestingly, that scene was in the film version. I thought sure when I found out there was a movie they’d do something else to show the ‘baptism’ of Declan. And in a way, they did - the scene was shot in such a way that it looked more like Rawhead was . . . er . . . doing something else. I think it was mostly because of the noises the actor was making.

On the subject of the film, holy rusted metal, Batman. I don’t think there was a single scene with Rawhead’s face in it that didn’t make me laugh - he looked like a horse and a dog had a baby and dressed it up like a hell’s angel. The clearly fake rippling torso was just as bad. And they didn’t even try to make him seem bigger than a normal man. There were a few changes to the plot: family man Ron doesn’t save the day, his wife does (the statue is only effective if held by a woman - which actually made more sense than the story ending), and the priest played a much smaller role in the film. The story was thought provoking, but the same cannot be said of the movie.

Breeding Ground

This is what I choose to believe the widows look like

Breeding Ground
by Sarah Pinborough

Like many people, I responded to this book on a visceral, emotional level. Not because I liked the characters (I didn't), or because they were well drawn (they weren't).



This book scared me because I'm scared of spiders.

Parts of this book worked really well for me. The premise is horrifying. The monsters are dreadful. The scenes that the book opens with, where Chloe is transfigured and eventually killed, are deeply disturbing. I think the book raised interesting questions about pregnancy, disease and abortion.

Unfortunately, raising the questions was about as far as it got. Instead of pursuing any of those leads, the author gives us one of the cheesiest attempted explanations for monsters that I think I've ever come across. I can't even begin to wrap my head around how genetic modification of plant crops was meant to eventually connect up with spider monsters. Or the blood of the deaf. Or telepathy. Or abrupt climate change. I would go so far as to say that the explanation of the monsters undermined their terror for me (and considering how I feel about spiders, that's saying a lot). The book went from being a thought experiment about something horrible to being a commercial for whole foods. It was jarring, to say the least. But more than that, it failed utterly to do the monsters justice.

I started the post by mentioning the characters. Ignoring the protagonist for the moment, just about every character is an archtype that can be described in a few words. The wise old man. The petite spunky girl. The creepy businessman. The friendly drunk. The wacky scientist. The withdrawn child. Some of them can best be described as non-descript (Dan. Mike. Jeff. I'll be honest, more than once I lost track who was who). Most of the characters never really rise above the conventions we expect from them. Nigel is consistently whiny and self important. George never loses his temper and always knows what to do.

The narrator was a major issue for me, as a voice and as a character. His responses to the situations he found himself in were immediate, but short-lived. Within days of his wife's death he has the hots for Katie. Within days of her suicide, he moves into bed with Rebecca. Minutes - literally minutes - after fleeing his former home, dead family, and the realization that spider monsters have killed nearly everyone else world wide, he sits down to "fresh coffee and a fry up."  The next line just sums up his whole character for me -  "If there was a morning for spoiling myself, then this was it." That's not just a guy being shallow - that's poor writing.

I've had a lot of negative things to say about this book (and I haven't even started in yet on the end of chapter sixteen, where for some reason the horror novel got mixed up with the penthouse forum). But in spite of these issues there was something about it that made me keep reading. I'm not sure if it was because of my arachnophobia, but I was frightened by these monsters. They were compelling, and the pacing of the novel made me want to finish reading it, in spite of how annoying parts of it became.

The Funeral

The Funeral was adapted as an episode of NBC's Night Gallery.
Joe Flynn (right) portrayed Morton Silkline.

The Funeral

by Richard Matheson
1955

Of all the short stories I've read by Matheson (I am midway through the second of three volumes in his collected works) this is the first one I've come across where he goes for outright comedy. I don't think it is his strongest outing, but for a course on Monsters it could hardly be ignored. Matheson summarized the piece in his commentary on it - "I just wanted to write a humorous funeral story." (Richard Matheson Collected Stories Vol. 2, edited by Stanley Wiater, pg. 273).

Matheson plays with several stereotypes in this piece - the Vampire, the Wolfman, the Hunchback, the Witch, and (briefly) the Alien. I found the werewolf character bothersome. Ullgate has only a single piece of dialogue, consisting of a single word. He is mentioned three times - in each he is described as "hairy handed" and twice as "hulking". I would argue, based on this characterization, that Matheson has combined the wolfman with the Hollywood Frankenstein monster - a strong, largely nonverbal brute.  I was disappointed with this, largely because it doesn't do justice to the werewolf mythos. There is a lot of fertile ground in the werewolf story (the role of gypsies in particular) that was ignored. The werewolf, typically, is depicted as a tragic figure who is horrified by what he becomes. This element is totally absent - Ullgate knows the change is imminent and insists that the funeral hurry up so he can change and presumably go eat someone. This depiction is wholly at odds with Lon Cheney's version and kind of annoyed me for not matching the other Hollywood monsters.

It's interesting to note that in the television adaptation of this piece (Night Gallery, season two, episode fifteen - available here from Hulu, starting at the 20 minute mark), the wolfman appears already in werewolf form (and his exit was one of the funnier scenes). This made considerably more sense and fit the tone of the piece a lot better.

On the subject of television, Matheson's inspirations for this piece seem to derive from film rather than literature. Consider Ygor. Shelley's novel had no such character - the stock "hunchback" character was originally called "Frits" or "Fritz" and was written for stage versions of Shelley's novel. The role of the assistant in these plays was to provide moral commentary and placate audiences who felt the material was blasphemous (see "In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity and Nineteenth Century Writing" by Chris Baldick for more about the origins of Hollywood's Frankenstein). The character was left in the script for 1931's Frankenstein film and became a mainstay afterward. It was fascinating to see him here as a "monster" - particularly given these origins.

The twist at the end was another departure, so far as the cast of monsters is concerned. Although the amorphous energy blob was fast becoming a staple villain of science fiction television, the description here made me think Lovecraftian Horror more than anything else.

As for the humor of the piece, most of it fell flat for me. The pacing was a little too fast for me to appreciate Silkline's comic reactions to the monsters (I didn't even see the line where he mourns for his rug until the second reading, because of the way it was formatted). It's worthwhile to watch the TV adaptation - a lot of the jokes come across better in that medium (for example, the "eternal restroom"). The end was amusing, but inevitable. The twist ending is a trope Matheson returns to again and again, certainly - but it isn't always so obvious.

Matheson was a versatile writer (the last few stories of his I've read went from ghost story to alien invader to honest-to-goodness western) so I can't say I'm surprised that he tried his hand at a humor piece. But it was disappointing to see so little characterization.