Fantasy films update: Conan gets a director; A Song of Ice and Fire pilot gets green-lighted

Following are two news items that should be of interest to any fantasy fan. I'm not sure if these qualify as old news, but they're new to me:

1. Brett Ratner to direct Conan film. Although I will defend the original Conan the Barbarian film to the death (okay, not to the death, but maybe To the Pain), we're long overdue for a Conan film based on the actual character created by Robert E. Howard. This news, if correct, seems to imply that that's (sort of) what we'll be getting:

Ratner jibed to the "Conan" script by Gersh-repped Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly, who looked to Robert E. Howard's original pulp stories of the 1930s to create their take on the character. The writers are doing a quick polish to incorporate some of Ratner's ideas, with an eye toward releasing the film in 2010.

I can't say I've seen Rush Hour 3 or X-Men: The Last Stand, which the story states that Ratner has directed. I get the impression, however, that these are run-of-the-mill action movies, and I hope that's not we get in the new Conan film. It deserves better than to end up as another entry in the recent run of forgettable fantasy films (see Troy, King Arthur). Also, let's hope the writers' "take on the character" does not deviate too much from Howard's source material. Suffice to say that I don't think anyone will be reading Oppenheimer or Donnelly 70 years (and counting) after their deaths.

2. HBO green-lights A Song of Ice and Fire pilot episode. So in case you've been living under a rock, author George R.R. Martin is currently in the midst of penning one of the better epic fantasy series I've ever read, and now it seems that HBO will be testing the viability and popularity of A Song of Ice and Fire on the screen with a pilot episode.

If the pilot gains traction, I think this could be a very good, long-running series. HBO had a smash-hit on its hands with The Sopranos, and what is A Song of Ice and Fire if not a medieval version of modern-day gangsters? Martin's tale is replete with seamy politics, warring families, revenge, and shocking violence. My mind is already turning with the potential casting decisions.

I do hope that HBO realizes that George R.R. Martin may never finish the series (this is no sarcasm on my part--I am not at all convinced that it will happen). So brace yourself for the possibility of a cliffhanger ending that never gets resolved.

Mourning the passing of Michael Crichton

Lo, I see here my father and mother

Lo, now I see all my deceased relatives sitting

Lo, there is my master, who is sitting in paradise.

--From Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton

In case you missed it, author Michael Crichton passed away this week at age 66 following a battle with cancer. Crichton was probably best known for his tales of science fiction, which include Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, and The Lost World, among many others.

I'll leave it to others to discuss those works. Instead, I'd like to take a moment to commemorate the man for his efforts in writing a lesser-known viking novel.

Eaters of the Dead receives little attention and most people know it better in its film adaptation, The 13th Warrior. The movie is okay but in my opinion Eaters is much better. If you're a fan of the film, or of dark ages/viking inspired fiction, you owe it to yourself to give it a read (and at only 180 pages it's not much of an investment of time).

I reviewed Eaters of the Dead not too long ago, and if you're interested in reading what I had to say (it's got a few spoilers), click here: http://thesilverkey.blogspot.com/2008/02/eaters-of-dead-review.html

Crichton died far too young but he leaves behind that which any viking would be proud to have as a legacy: Great stories that will not soon fade. In Eaters of the Dead, the vikings live by the following phrase, which lends them their fearlessness:

The deeds of dead men are sung, and also the deeds of heroes who live, but never are sung the deeds of ordinary men.

Though his body now lies beneath the mould, Crichton had the honor of living a life far more accomplished than an ordinary man. His works will continue to be read after his death and thus, he will live on.

The Land that Time Forgot: A tale best left forgotten

Repeat after me: Pulp is a great genre, but not all pulp is great. And some of it isn't very good at all, I'm afraid.

I lead with this because I've noticed that pulp often gets a free pass from its advocates. Fans will leap to the defense of poorly plotted, boring, or otherwise not well-written stories and pulp-inspired films with a simple, "well, it's pulp"--as if this fact somehow makes the genre above criticism.

Now, I happen to be a big fan of pulp, but I can also recognize a flawed example when I see it. Even when its written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, one of pulp's grand masters (see many of his wonderful Tarzan and John Carter stories).

I'm sorry to say that Burroughs' The Land that Time Forgot is not very good. It's not as bad as, say, Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold , and I've read worse, but when compared to the best pulp has to offer--i.e., almost anything written by Robert E. Howard--The Land that Time Forgot simply does not measure up.

Part of my problem with this book may be the fact that I listened to an audio recording produced by Audio Realms, delivered in uninspired fashion by narrator Brian Holsopple. Audio Realms is also responsible for producing the fantastic series The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, read by Wayne June (who is a terrific narrator), but I found this particular entry in their catalogue rather poor.

To be fair, Holsopple doesn't exactly have Lovecraft at the top of his game to work with. Some of the dialogue in The Land that Time Forgot is so stilted and cornball that I found myself literally cringing behind the steering wheel while driving into work. Here's one less-than-stellar example:

"You have evolved a beautiful philosophy," I said. "It fills such a longing in the human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is ennobling. What wonderous strides toward perfection the human race might have made if the first man had evolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity."

"I don't like irony," she said; "it indicates a small soul."

"What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from 'a comic little figure hopping from the cradle to the grave'?" I inquired. "And what difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don't like? You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself too seriously."

She looked up at me with a smile. "I imagine that I am frightened and blue," she said, "and I know that I am very, very homesick and lonely." There was almost a sob in her voice as she concluded. It was the first time that she had spoken thus to me. Involuntarily, I laid my hand upon hers where it rested on the rail.

I mean, this stuff makes the lines delivered in Days of Our Lives seem like John Keats in comparison.

The Land that Time Forgot tells the tale of Tyler Bowen, an American on a merchant vessel whose ship is attacked by a World War I German U-boat. Bowen survives and with the help of some British sailors manages to overpower the U-boat's crew. Bowen is eventually betrayed by one of his own men who smashes the U-boat's instruments in an attempt to doom the ship's crew. When Bowen finally learns who his betrayer is, the man on his deathbed reveals his secrets like an unmasked villain from Scooby-Doo:

"I did it alone," he said. "I did it because I hate you--I hate all your kind. I was kicked out of your shipyard at Santa Monica. I was locked out of California. I am an I. W. W. I became a German agent--not because I love them, for I hate them too--but because I wanted to injure Americans, whom I hated more. I threw the wireless apparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer and the sextant. I devised a scheme for varying the compass to suit my wishes. I told Wilson that I had seen the girl talking with von Schoenvorts, and I made the poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I am sorry--sorry that my plans failed. I hate you."

And he would have succeeded if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

Lost at sea and low on food and water, Bowen and his men land on the island of Caprona, a literal island that time forgot. It's inhabited by dinosaurs of every age as well as ice-age beasts and men in various stages of evolution. Bowen then spends the rest of the book rescuing a stranded damosel from the hands of lustful Neanderthal men and hungry dinosaurs, as well as kicking the crap out of primitive men. Oh, I didn't mention that Bowen happens to be a physical specimen and a master of judo? Here's my favorite passage:

Three of the warriors were sitting upon me, trying to hold me down by main strength and awkwardness, and they were having their hands full in the doing, I can tell you. I don't like to appear conceited, but I may as well admit that I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired and developed in the directing of it--that and my horsemanship I always have been proud of.

And now, that day, all the long hours that I had put into careful study, practice and training brought me in two or three minutes a full return upon my investment. Californians, as a rule, are familiar with ju-jutsu, and I especially had made a study of it for several years, both at school and in the gym of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, while recently I had had, in my employ, a Jap who was a wonder at the art. It took me just about thirty seconds to break the elbow of one of my assailants, trip another and send him stumbling backward among his fellows, and throw the third completely over my head in such a way that when he fell his neck was broken.

"Californians as a rule are familiar with ju-jutsu?" "I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired and developed in the directing of it?" "A Jap who was a wonder at the art?" Man, if this isn't Mystery Science Theatre 3000 material than I don't know what is.

About the only thing that The Land the Time Forgot has going for it is that it isn't entirely boring, if you like one mindless action scene strung together after the next. But, in summation, if you're looking for a good representative of the pulp genre, look elsewhere.

Note: The Land that Time Forgot is now in the public domain, and if you're so inclined you can read it in its entirety at Project Gutenberg, here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/551

Addendum: This review also appears at SFFaudio.com: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=3572

Annabel Lee

By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me--
Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Fright Night: 1980s + vampires=fun

You won't see Fright Night, a semi-obscure, fun little vampire flick from 1986, on many "best of" horror movie lists. Nevertheless, it's one of my personal favorites. Fright Night packs into it all the elements I ask of a good horror film: A decent plot, some reasonable acting, a little mayhem, some monsters, a handful of nice visual effects, and a little bit of skin. On all these requirements, Fright Night delivers.

You can tell that writer/director Tom Holland is a horror fan. The film is very much an homage to Hammer Horror, a UK-based series of classic monster films that ran from roughly the late 1950's to the early 1970's whose line included such memorable titles as Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein. Fright Night is also a love-letter to the once-prevalent late-night horror celebrity-hosted movie shows such as Elvira Movie Macabre and Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs. In fact, the movie derives its name from a fictional and self-referential B-horror television program.

The basic plot of Fright Night is as follows: Main character Charlie Brewster is up late watching Fright Night while making out with his girlfriend Amy (pretty much a perfect horror movie beginning). Glancing out his window, Charlie sees two men carrying a coffin into the basement of a vacant house next door. The next day, a stream of gorgeous prostitutes begin to show up at the house, followed shortly by evening news reports of a series of murders.

Charlie begins to spy on the going-on at the house, and late one night he sees his new neighbor, Jerry Dandrige, kissing a beautiful woman in the window. Dandridge leans in to kiss her neck and opens his mouth wide--to reveal a set of wicked fangs. He's just about to bite the woman when he looks up and sees Charlie watching, wide-eyed. Dandridge pulls down the shade to complete his feast.

Convinced Dandridge is a vampire and behind the string of murders, Charlie seeks out the services of Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer and host of Fright Night (and an obvious 1:1 correlation to Hammer Horror's Peter Cushing). Vincent has just been fired from Fright Night, which has fallen sharply in the ratings due to the public's current thirst for "psychotic ski masked killers." But Vincent, thinking that Charlie is just a crazy kid, refuses his appeal for help.

Desperate, Charlie decides to sneak next door and drive a stake into Dandridge's heart. Amy and Charlie's friend Ed Thompson (another horror fan appropriately nicknamed Evil), don't believe Charlie's claims that Dandridge is a vampire, but in order to stop him from committing murder they recruit Vincent to perform a phony "vampire testing" ceremony on Dandridge. "Just like in Orgy of the Dead!" says Evil. Dandridge drinks holy water (tap water) supplied by Vincent and passes the "test." But Vincent, exiting the house, notices in a handmirror that Dandridge casts no reflection. The action really picks up from there.

Some of my favorite elements from Fright Night include the following:

Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge. Dandridge must have done some film study of the 1979 film Dracula when prepping for his role, as he reminds me of a funnier, more self-deprecating Frank Langella. Dandridge is not in the mold of a frightening Nosferatu, a-la Kurt Barlow from Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. Rather, he's a handsome seducer and pours on the sex appeal to charm his way into his victim's lives.

Dandridge is introduced in a great scene that starts when Evil tells Charlie that a vampire cannot enter someone's house unless he is invited inside by its rightful owner. That night when nailing his bedroom window shut Charlie's mother calls him downstairs. "I had someone over I'd like you to meet," she says. The look on Charlie's face when he sees Dandridge reclining in his living room easy chair is priceless.

Classic vampires--with a twist. Fright Night has all the standard vampire trappings I like: An aversion to crosses and holy water, sleeping in coffins, avoiding daylight, inhuman strength, shape-shifting ability, etc. I don't like stories that mess too much with the old tropes. But Fright Night makes subtle tweaks to the formula that work. For example, instead of a broken down, Gothic-style home or a haunted Transylvanian castle, Dandridge lives in a not too out of the ordinary home in the heart of a suburban neighborhood.

Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent. McDowall is the best actor in the film and his transformation from a phony, self-absorbed small TV star to real-life heroic vampire killer is a joy to watch.

1980's nostalgia. Fright Night is very much a period piece and has all the trappings (the distinct clothes and hairstyles, even a cheesy nightclub with synthesizer music) that those who grew up the decade know and love.

Fright Night isn't without its flaws. One subplot in particular (Dandridge is drawn to Amy, Charlie's girlfriend, because she looks like a woman he used to love ages ago) is not at all developed and wholly unnecessary. But overall it's another film that, along with The Lair of the White Worm and An American Werewolf in London, treads the horror and humor line just perfectly. It's certainly given me great enjoyment over the years and has held up to multiple October viewings.

An American Werewolf in London: Lycanthropy has never been so fun

"Stay on the road, keep clear of the moors... beware the moon, lads."

--Unnamed patron of the Slaughtered Lamb, from An American Werewolf in London

In his non-fiction study of the horror genre, Danse Macabre, Stephen King lays out the case that evil in fiction can be broken out into three archetypes--the Vampire, the Werewolf, and the Thing Without a Name. According to King, the Werewolf archetype includes stories that explore the evil lurking within mankind, "something vicious in the human makeup that has not yet been bred out."

But when it comes to actual on-screen depictions of the beasts themselves, werewolves have received a middle child's neglect--or worse, outright abuse (see most of The Howling series, the miserable An American Werewolf in Paris, etc.). One of the few and notable celluloid exceptions is the terrific 1981 film An American Werewolf in London, for my money still the best werewolf film of all time and a true standout in the horror genre.

An American Werewolf in London opens with sweeping views of the moors of Northern England. The sinister and mist-shrouded landscape is ringed with steep hills that seem to conceal something terrible, a hungry creature watching the land for potential victims. There is nowhere to hide or to run. Civilization (such as it can be called) consists of small towns huddled in vales, points of light in the darkness.

Over this opening visual sequence comes the song "Blue Moon" (with its ominous line, "Now I'm no longer alone.") This juxtaposition of light-hearted music and dread-filled imagery sets the tone for the remainder of this underappreciated horror classic. Director John Landis' skillful balancing of comedy and horror is in large part what makes An American Werewolf in London so enduring and memorable.

As the film opens, Jack and David (played by actor David Naughton), two young American travelers hiking their way across europe on an ill-fated vacation, are hitchiking on the back of a farm truck with a load of sheep, and are unceremoniously dumped at an intersection in the heart of the moors. The two walk into a small village and, seeking comfort from the cold, enter an inn ominously named The Slaughtered Lamb. Jack makes the mistake of asking about a pentagram on the wall and the mood in the inn immediately turns hostile and sour. Finding themselves unwanted, Jack and David prepare to leave into the moonlit light. As they depart a local issues an ominous warning: "Stay on the road, keep clear of the moors... beware the moon, lads."

In a terrifyingly effective sequence, David and Jack are stalked on the moors and savagely attacked by a werewolf. Jack suffers a horrible death and David is left wounded and bleeding... to himself become a werewolf at the next full moon. While recouperating in a London hospital, David and his nurse, Alex, become romantically involved. But their idyllic romance is interrupted by David's horrible dreams, which include sequences of himself running nude through the woods, transforming into something monstrous, as well as visions of wanton destruction inflicted on those he loves. This is the lycanthrope lurking inside David, dark porents of the horror he will soon unwillingly inflict on the people of London.

Once again Landis injects levity back into the story with the reappearance of Jack. Though he's now undead, and horribly mauled to boot, Jack retains his wisecracking, self-deprecating personality (in fact, the two chat about Jack's funeral service back in the United States, with Jack complaining about his grief-stricken girlfriend finding solace in the bed of another man). Jack tells David that the only way the curse of lycanthropy can be broken--and Jack's soul laid to rest--is to end the werewolf's bloodline, of which David is now the inheritor. "Take your life David. Kill yourself--before you kill others," Jack urges.

Like the voice of David's conscience, Jack returns again and again throughout the film, his visage growing worse and worse with each appearance due to the onset of rot, each time imploring David to take his own life. By the end of the film all the flesh has fallen away from Jack's face, leaving a grinning skull. In a memorable scene, David meets the heavily-decayed Jack in a sleazy adult movie theatre along with six other victims of his first murderous rampage in London. Their mauled corpses offer suggestions as to how David can best kill himself as the grunts and sighs of a porno flick drone on in the background.

All in all, this is one of my all-time favorite horror films and one that I find myself returning to annually each Halloween.

I won't spoil the ending, but I'd be remiss if didn't mention at least a few other of my favorite scenes/elements from the film:

The werewolf transformation sequence. Done prior to the advent of CGI, this is a masterpiece of latex, fake hair, and camera tricks that, 27 years later, remains the best werewolf transformation ever put to film. Naughton does a great job of conveying the agony of changing into a werewolf as his body is wracked with unnatural growths, including lengthening leg bones, a snout bursting through his face, and hands and feet that stretch and sprout claws.

David's attempt to get arrested. When David discovers to his horror that he is a werewolf and responsible the murders of six London civilians, he attempts to get arrested and thrown behind bars to prevent himself from killing again. He runs up to a policeman and begs to be taken to jail ("I want you to arrest me you asshole!"). When the officer refuses, he shouts at the growing crowd, "Queen Elizabeth is a man, Prince Charles is a faggot, Winston Churchill was full of shit, Shakespeare was French!" This is laugh-out-loud funny.

The subway scene. In his werewolf form David pursues a businessman in the subway tunnels beneath London. Landis wisely takes a cue from Jaws and keeps the werewolf largely off-screen, which proves very effective: Its deep, bestial growl echoing in the cavernous mouth of the subway tunnel is terrifying, as are the few glimpses we get of hate-filed eyes and gray fur. In the businessman's panicked looks over his shoulder we can see the approach of his own horrible death (I note that when Landis does show the werewolf in the full light of the London streetlamps at the end of the film, it's not nearly as scary).

I also have to give props to the soundtrack, which includes the aforementioned "Blue Moon," as well as other appropriate werewolf songs (Van Morrison's "Moondance" and "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR).

The perverse underbelly of horror: A review of The Lair of the White Worm

Note: I have a weakness for horror films of all types--good and bad, classic and B-grade, you name it--that the approach of Halloween always brings out. The following is the first review of a couple of lesser-known horror films that also happen to be among my favorites.

Funny, gruesome, sexy, campy, hallucinogenic, uneven, and twisted are just a few of the adjectives I'd use to describe The Lair of the White Worm. Directed by Ken Russell, this 1988 horror film is supposedly based on a Bram Stoker novel of the same name, and I say supposedly because, although I've never read Stoker's novel, the plot summaries I've reviewed bear almost no resemblance to the movie.

The basic plot summary is as follows: A visiting student archeologist (Angus Flint) uncovers the skull of an enormous snake while excavating the buried remains of an ancient Roman temple in the quiet, pastoral village of Derbyshire. His find lends weight to the old Derbyshire folklore that a knight named John D'Ampton slew a great man-eating-worm/wyrm (i.e., dragon) that terrorized the countryside centuries before.

Angus is staying in the home of two comely lasses named Mary and Eve, whose parents disappeared a year earlier while walking along a wooded path near the home of the mysterious Lady Sylvia. Sylvia is soon revealed to be a vampiric snake-woman and worshipper of the ancient snake god Dionan. Sylvia later captures Eve as a living sacrifice for Dionan, and it's up to Angus, Mary, and James D'Ampton--the many-times great-grandson of the legendary hero John D'Ampton--to stop Sylvia and destroy the ancient evil dwelling in the dark caverns overlooking Derbyshire.

I strongly urge highly religious people (and, in particular, devout Catholics) to steer clear of The Lair of the White Worm since it contains some sadistic, fever-dream flashbacks of cruelty, murder, and worse inflicted on nuns and other religious symbols/personages. But if you can overlook these elements, and a couple of other bizarre and mostly nonsensical cut-scenes/dream sequences (which include an erotically-charged lesbian wrestling match in the interior of a Concorde jet), The Lair of the White Worm has a lot to offer.

For all its faults, I find The Lair of the White Worm compulsively watchable and enjoyable. Here are some of the reasons why:

The Lovecraftian vibe. The Lair of the White Worm has a strong "Thing that should not be," mythic, elder-evil feel to it, starting with the opening credits, red letters superimposed over a menacing cave mouth that portends something evil lurking within. Russell smartly and humorously inserts snake-like imagery and serpentine allusions into the film, building up to the "big reveal" at the end. He also succeeds in infusing the action with the dark history of Derbyshire, a small town that nearly two millennia ago was the site of a Roman-era cult dedicated to the worship of the snake-god Dionin. You could run a great (albeit half-slapstick) Call of Cthulhu game following this script.

Amanda Donohoe. To say that Donohoe (Lady Sylvia) chews scenery in this film is an understatement. She is absolutely stunning and sexy--and plays a wonderfully wicked vampiric snake woman to boot. Donohoe also manages to display a lot of flesh, which is definitely part of the film's appeal.

Hugh Grant. I liked Grant in this, even more so because the actor who went on to star in safe, family comedies like Nine Months doubtless would like to forget ever being in this film.

The camp. For all its gore and scary scenes, you're not supposed to take The Lair of the White Worm seriously. Russell lays on the campiness pretty thick--and it works. One of my favorite scenes has D'Ampton telling Angus about the legend of the D'Ampton worm as the latter shoves forkfuls of pickled earthworms into his mouth while attempting to talk with his mouth absolutely overflowing.

The biblical allusions. These are at times a bit ham-fisted but they do add another dimension to the film. We have Eve, the pure and virginal maiden, kidnapped by Sylvia, the serpent, who seduces her from a tree a-la the Garden of Eden. James D'Ampton is in the middle of the conflict, drawn to the sluttish Sylvia by his lust and to the chaste Eve by his heart. This tension is drawn out in a truly bizarre dream sequence/lesbian wrestling match I alluded to previously.

The bad effects. Most of the "special effects" in this film aren't so special, but I like them all the better for it. One of my favorites is a scene in which James D'Ampton cuts a snake-woman in half with a sword, leaving her legs and upper body writhing a pool of blood. Only it's painfully obvious that the two halves were created with two actors sticking up their legs and upper body through the floor of the set. It's a scene that's sure to bring to a smile to fans of schlock horror.

To read more about this fine (?) film, I recommend this Web site: http://www.geocities.com/lairof/frame.htm