Mini Review: Silent Night (2012)

by Steve Habrat

In November of 2012, Anchor Bay Films quietly snuck Steve C. Miller’s Silent Night, a loose remake of the 1984 Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night, into select theaters and then quickly released it on Blu-ray and DVD just a few short weeks later. Were us horror fans really that bad that we deserved a lump of coal like this?! Apparently yes, yes we were. From the get-go, it is obvious Silent Night is winking at the horror fans that will undoubtedly flock to it over the years. But too often, the film is awkward and amateurish, consistently confusing pulpy gore for honest scares to the point where it is almost maddening. To make it worse, this abysmal waste of time can’t seem to smoothly deliver anything resembling a good joke. It’s so bad, folks, that even a beloved genre star like Malcolm McDowell can’t even sell it, and believe me when I tell you that he tries very, very hard to make this formulaic snoozefest work. The only positives that you will find in Silent Night are the homicidal Santa, who prefers to toast his victims with a flamethrower, and a scene in which one character gets their head chopped in half with an axe. That is where this turkey’s joys begin and end.

Silent Night picks up on Christmas Eve, where the citizens of a small Midwestern town are gearing up for a massive holiday celebration that invites hundreds of Santa Claus impersonators to get in on the fun. Among the citizens looking forward to the holiday activities are Aubrey Bradimore (played by Jamie King), a sheriff’s deputy still attempting to get over the loss of her husband. The celebration seems to be getting off to a smooth start, aside from one belligerent Santa (played by Donal Logue) who is making children cry in a local park, but things take a nasty turn when a small-time porn director and his star wind up brutally slaughtered at a local motel. Bradimore, fellow deputy Giles (played by Andrew Cecon), and the town Sheriff, Cooper (played by Malcolm McDowell), launch an investigation, but they realize that this massacre isn’t an isolated incident. After watching a videotape that was rolling during the murders at the motel, the officers discover that their suspect is dressed as a morbid Santa Claus, making it extremely difficult to track down the killer and bring him to justice. As the sun sets and the celebration kicks into high gear, several more citizens turn up dead, but the quest to track down the maniacal Santa gets personal when one murder strikes close to home for Aubrey.

Silent Night opens with a pitch-black opening credit sequence that suggests that what we are getting into is going to be a straight-shooting horror movie that wallows in shadowy suspense. Miller’s camera is trained on the killer as he makes his chilling Santa mask, suits up in that jolly red suit, and torments one victim with an axe before offing him in a totally unexpected manner. It’s a sturdy stage setter, that you cannot deny, but once Miller emerges from that dark cellar and lets his killer loose on the town streets, the film quickly plummets. Almost every death scene is completely wooden, shot with a jittery camera and strung together through fast edits that resemble something out of a heavy metal music video. These death scenes will undoubtedly please gore fans, as the blood sprays in every single direction, but they never rise above being gross. Now I’m certainly not one to complain about gross, but Miller never even considers injecting an ounce of terror into any of these scenes. They just flail around on the screen with sudden blasts of music, the same old lazy jump scares that we have all come to expect from uninspired horror exercises such as this. Furthermore, the “ick” moments seem to lack a punch of originality, especially a scene in which a wannabe porn star is crammed into a wood chipper. It’s nauseating enough, but it seems like more of an obnoxious cry for attention rather than a vicious little surprise.

In addition to the lack of solid scares, Miller can’t seem to get his actors to do much with Jayson Rothwell’s clunky script, which is bogged down with clichéd dialogue and leaden one-liners. McDowell taps into his fiery wit and bug-eyed smugness, but even he can’t make some of the jokes work. It’s almost painful watching him spit out lines like “what is this, Glee?” to one caroling officer. And to think that this is the same man who played the sadistic Alex De Large in A Clockwork Orange! King’s Aubrey fares no better, as she just sulks around and forces a brooding side to her one-dimensional heroine. Cecon’s Giles is also pretty painful, a dimwit only present to bite it in an idiotic death scene. The only two actors who seem to rise above the material are Logue, who gets to have a bit of fun as a cranky Saint Nick who rants and raves about the holiday season, and Ellen Wong, who shows up as the perky Brenda, the wisecracking secretary of the police station. Overall, while all of the bloody mayhem and tongue-in-cheek approach may sound tempting to horror fans, Miller’s Silent Night is a flat, clumsy, and scare-less affair that bores more than it thrills. Aside from it’s chilling killer, it is just another careless remake that should have remained shelved at the studio.

Grade: D-

Silent Night is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

by  Craig Thomas

It all started with The Super Mario Brothers. By which, I mean the idea that you could take a massively successful computer game and turn it into a movie, which would have a pre-established fan-base. Which is all well and good except for one thing. It was rubbish. Like Waterworld rubbish, apparently. I say “apparently” because having seen Waterworld recently the idea that anything could approach such levels of stupidity just seems incredibly unlikely. Plus, as a child I saw the Super Mario Brothers movie numerous times and thoroughly enjoyed it. But kids are stupid, so they can’t be trusted. Not even your younger self. Especially not your younger self. He was an idiot. At least, mine was.

Anyway, that was the film that kicked off the trend of movies based on computer games being rubbish and since then, not a lot has changed. The only major difference being that nowadays when one of these terrible movies is made, it is openly ridiculed for being terrible. Then it goes onto make millions of dollars. Then there is a sequel. Which is again ridiculed. Which then goes on to make millions more dollars. In the case of the god awful Resident Evil series, they are currently up to number five. All of which are unreservedly terrible. And horrendously successful, financially speaking.

And so it is with Silent Hill, which as a game is pretty damn good, or so I’m told. But they made a film and it wasn’t really any good, but it made a lot of money, so they made Silent Hill: Revelation.

It is set about seven years after the first trip to Silent Hill, and Sharon (now named Heather and played by Adelaide Clemens) is 18 years old, only she can’t remember anything of the first movie. Her mother, Rose, (played by Radha Mitchell), is missing, and for some reason (most likely, financial), Sean Penn resumes his role as her father, Christopher.

This is all explained at the start of the movie. Then a bunch of not very important stuff happens and she finds herself once again in Silent Hill.

What then happens is familiar to anyone who has seen the first one. There are the same deformed armless zombie things, and the same weirdly sexy, slutty nurse zombies and the same distinctly non-sexy sword-wielding giant with a over-sized cheese grater on his head. It might actually be his head, I’m not sure.

Anyway, as well as this there is also the introduction of a new bad guy (read: woman), who is the same as the old bad guy (woman). Then, there is probably the most unforgettably terrible demon creature of all time. If I said it was a zombie spider mannequin composed of mostly arms holding dummy heads it would sound about as frightening as it is (ie: not at all). It might even make you sigh with exasperation, but what it won’t do, and what is shouldn’t do, is make you laugh. Horror is the antithesis of comedy, in that if everyone laughs then you’ve not done your job properly. It was truly pathetic and the graphics of the “scary” screaming mannequin face looked like something out of a spoof.

But that was somewhat indicative of the whole film, it just wasn’t scary, or creepy or anything like that. For all the flaws of the first film, at least it did generate a sense of unease when essentially helpless characters are being chased by the relentless forces of evil. Sure, it wasn’t as intense as The Terminator, but at least it was something. That is missing from this film, not least of all due to the apparent uselessness of the evil characters this time around.

It seemed to me that one of the key problems of the film was that, like its predecessor, it was intended to be about two hours long. Instead, what we get in a film that clocks in at just under 90 minutes. This in itself is not a bad thing. The original certainly dragged in places and felt overly long. However, this one feels like test audiences said it felt too long so they just cut a bunch of stuff out. The issue then is one of pace. A lot of the scenes feel as if they were intended to be slow, drawn-out affairs which have been simply cut short, without any sort of reworking. Ideas then feel under-developed, which is particularly irritating as there are a lot of events in the film, none of which are given an opportunity to build to any sort of dramatic tension. This is a perfect example of a poorly paced film, or more precisely, of a decently paced film, poorly edited.

If you’re looking for a good horror film, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for that first good movie derived from a computer game, you’re out of luck again. It isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t fix the flaws of the overly-long original and in fact, makes matters worse with its brevity. But the acting is fine, so is the dialogue, though the plot could certainly have done with a few more revisions. Anyone who green-lights a film where the penultimate battle is a hug-to-the-death between two teenage girls on a horsey carousel deserves to be fired. But they won’t be. In fact, they’ll probably get a nice juicy bonus.

For all the problems of this film, of which there are many, it is still a better film than any of the Resident Evil monstrosities. And if that’s not damning with faint praise, then I don’t know what is.

Hopefully the lessons will be learnt and all the problems will be fixed for the third installment in the franchise. And there will be a third installment. Or at least, that’s what the ending promised. But then again, so did Super Mario Brothers.

Grade: D

Attack of the Remakes! Halloween II (2009)

by Steve Habrat

While Rob Zombie tried his damndest to put his own fresh spin on the Halloween series while also staying true to the original story in his 2007 remake, you could tell that Zombie was on a short leash. It felt like he was holding something back, whatever that something was. Initially, Zombie swore he would not make a sequel to his remake but after the studio threatened to make a sequel without him, he agreed to slip back into the director’s chair to prevent someone else from desecrating his vision. Personally, I felt his vision was complete and that it really didn’t need a sequel but you know how Hollywood is. Apparently, they wanted to ignore the period he placed on the end of his film. In 2009, Zombie unleashed the deranged funhouse Halloween II, a meaner, bloodier, and busier follow-up that has to rank as one of the most unusual slasher horror films I have ever seen. Even more hit or miss than his 2007 reboot, Zombie attempts to mix exploitation gore, surreal black and white horror, and Michael Myers together and the results are… interesting. Halloween II finds Zombie off his leash and fully embracing that something that he was holding back. That something, it turns out, is full on brutality and countless nods to the classic horror that inspires him.

Picking up just moments after the first film ended, Laurie Strode (Played by Scout Taylor-Compton) is found wandering the streets of Haddonfield with a gun in her hand. Badly injured and in severe shock, Laurie is taken to the emergency room where her wounds are cleaned and mended through ear splitting cries for her family and friends. A year passes and Laurie, now a punk rock rebel who suffers from horrific dreams, is under the care of Sheriff Lee Brackett (Played by Brad Dourif) and shacking up with fellow survivor Annie (Played by Danielle Harris). As Halloween approaches, Laurie’s dreams begin to hint that Michael Myers (Played by Tyler Mane) may not be dead at all. Fueling Laurie’s fears is the fact that the authorities never found a body. Meanwhile, Michael has been searching for his long, lost sister and finding encouragement from the apparition of his deceased mother (Played by Sheri Moon Zombie). To make matters worse, Dr. Samuel Loomis (Played by Malcolm McDowell), who is no longer the good doctor he once was, is capitalizing on the massacre that ripped the small town apart.

While Halloween II has been panned by critics and dismissed by fans as being one of the worst films in the Halloween series, I have to say that I actually found the film fairly entertaining even if it is gleefully repulsive and slightly unfocused. I will agree that the plotline of the film is a mess and that things don’t tie up like Zombie wants them to but the film has such a striking visual approach that it was easy for me to dismiss many of the flaws. I loved the gothic, dreamlike sequences that Zombie uses to cut up his grainy, foul-mouthed slasher exercise. I actually found them to be quite spooky and glaringly Zombie, something that was severely lacking in the 2007 remake. I also really liked the look of Michael in this film. Minus a pair of bloodstained coveralls and half a mask, Michael is filthy dirty and proud of it. Another new touch is Michael’s loud grunts as he brutally stabs to death countless more victims who bump into him. It certainly is a new take on the character and it does deviate from what we have become used to but that is why I like it. While I still prefer silent, coverall-clad Mikey, this one still makes my skin crawl in a good way.

As far as Scout Taylor-Compton goes, her Laurie has undergone a strange shift in character since we last saw her. No longer as buttoned up as she was in the remake, the dark side hinted at has been unleashed and boy, is she grungy. Her shift is unusual, there is no doubt about it, but I feel like Zombie could have found another way to convey that she has embraced more of a darker side after her encounter with Michael. She hangs out with a duo of punk rock chicks that work in a local record shop but these friends are left severely undeveloped and only there to meet the sharp end of Michael’s knife. If you think Laurie’s shift in character is out of left field, wait until you get a load of Loomis. Acting like an arrogant jerk, Loomis is a hot shot flirt who makes big money off of ugly tragedy and it is the complete opposite of what we saw in the first film. I hardly believe that Loomis would have such a drastic shift in his character after getting beaten up by Michael but I guess anything is possible. Dourif is still great as Sheriff Brackett and Danielle Harris works hard as the still-shaky fellow survivor Annie. Sheri Moon Zombie is also back as Michael’s ghostly mother, who encourages her son’s killing spree from the other side. It honestly feels like a way for Zombie to work his wife into the mix but her presence does give Halloween II the unique feel it possesses. Just like Halloween, Zombie throws in a number of B-horror fan favorites including Margot Kidder, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, and Richard Riehle.

Throughout Halloween II, Zombie also applies the psychological ‘White Horse’ theory, which he defines at the beginning of the film and then spends the next two hours cramming it down our throats. While I admire Zombie’s attempt to give the film a little psychological depth, he just goes overboard trying to convince us the film is smart. The film does have a seriously eerie opening sequence set in the quiet halls of a hospital while The Moody Blues moan in the background. It superbly pays tribute to the original Halloween II while also working double time to set itself apart from that film. The hospital sequence also features an awesome cameo from Octavia Spencer, who dies extra gruesomely. Steeped in bloody, tie-dyed visuals and unashamed to wear its inspiration on its sleeve, Halloween II comes out just ahead of its predecessor as far as I’m concerned. It feels more original and, dare I say, much more personal than the first film. I personally feel that this film solidifies Zombie’s place on the list of directors to pay close attention to. As he sharpens his skills as a filmmaker, I feel like he will really come up with something that is stunning visually and truly imaginative in the story department. All he needs to do is scale back on the repulsive dialogue and slow down. You can’t quite shake the feeling that Halloween II was rushed and that Zombie was under a lot of pressure to get this thing out. Overall, it certainly isn’t perfect but it is fun to see Zombie set himself apart from the formulaic pack.

Grade: B+

Halloween II is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Attack of the Remakes! Halloween (2007)

by Steve Habrat

I think everyone remembers where they were when they learned that there was going to be a remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 flawless horror classic Halloween. I remember I was at my best friends house playing around on his laptop when we happened upon the news. We were in shock, unable to process the fact that there was going to be a remake of one of the scariest films of all time. While half not surprised that Hollywood was going to tinker with a great thing, it still made me sick to my stomach because I figured they would hand the film over to some John Doe director who would screw it up royally. My anger turned to intrigue when I learned that the film was being written, produced, and directed by shock rocker turned filmmaker Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie! While I was a fan of the 2005 splatter flick The Devil’s Rejects, I was so-so with his day-glow Texas Chain Saw Massacre wannabe House of 1000 Corpses. Well, opening weekend came and me and my chums piled into a car and headed to the local theater to check out Zombie’s remake and I must say, we were all fairly impressed with what we saw. Just as nasty, mean, and brutal as I figured it would be, Zombie’s Halloween was actually a surprisingly eerie slasher film that was equally parts new and familiar at the same time, striking just the right balance. It also helps that Zombie populated his dingy remake with a slew of familiar B-horror faces that would make most gore hounds grin from ear to ear. But the most astonishing thing of all remains the fact that the film isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Whew!

Halloween 2007 introduces us to young Michael Myers (Played by Daeg Faerch), a ruthlessly bullied boy who already suffers from deranged tendencies. Michael shacks up with his stripper mother Deborah (Played by Sheri Moon Zombie), her deadbeat boyfriend Ronnie (Played by William Forsythe), his older sister Judith (Played by Hanna R. Hall), and his baby sister, only finding affection from his loving mother. On Halloween night, Michael finally snaps from his relentless torment and brutally murders a school bully, Ronnie, Judith, and Judith’s boyfriend Steve. With no recollection of the murders, Michael is taken into custody and sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium where is put under the care of kindly Dr. Samuel Loomis (Played by Malcolm McDowell). As the years pass, Michael becomes more and more fixated on papier-mâché masks that he makes in his cell. Dr. Loomis begins to suspect that Michael uses the masks to hide from both himself and the world. Fifteen years pass and Michael (Played by Tyler Mane), now a hulking adult, has stopped speaking to everyone. On the night before Halloween, Michael escapes from his cell and begins making his way back to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, now named Laurie Strode (Played by Scout-Taylor Compton). As Dr. Loomis rushes to contact the authorities, the body count rises as Michael ruthlessly searches for the only person he loves.

The argument has been made that Zombie misunderstood what made the original Halloween such a terrifying experience. It was the fact that we didn’t know anything about Michael or why he is killing anyone who crosses his path. Over the years, he has become known as the “Shape,” the Boogieman walking among us in complete silence. With Halloween 2007, Zombie is forced to dive into Michael’s background and in the process; he explains literally every single aspect of the character. We learn why he wears that legendary mask, what made him snap, that he demonstrated psychotic behavior before he went on his killing spree, and that he is pretty close with that old Dr. Loomis. All of this is complimented with heaping amounts of gore and profane dialogue that does get a bit ludicrous at times. Trust me, I’m no prude but at points you can’t help but picture Zombie hunched over a computer straining to think of the most repulsive dialogue he can. He certainly succeeds. Even though Zombie explains everything, I argue that he had no choice but to explain away the character. What else was he going to do? Hardcore Halloween fans would have grumbled if he would have done a shot for shot remake and thankfully, he didn’t resort to that. I give Zombie credit for daring to try something new with the character and taking a peak behind that legendary mask rather than doing what has already been done. I can certainly say that he does make Halloween his own to an extent because he leaves the ending relatively the same.

The acting of Halloween 2007 ends up being a mixed trick or treat bag of sugary sweets and bitter sours. Sheri Moon Zombie is better at the big-hearted mommy than I ever thought she’d be. She is sort of hit or miss with me but here she proves that she possesses some dramatic depth even if she is forced to spit out cliché lines of dialogue. I really enjoyed her bickering and fighting with Forsythe’s abusive boyfriend Ronnie. He was a real piece of work but he doesn’t stick around long. Faerch is so-so as little Michael, a little too forced but he is creepy when he finally slips into madness. Tyler Mane plays Michael Myers exactly how you would expect him to. He cocks his head from side to side but he stabs, hacks, and slashes just a little more violently than he did in the 1978 original. McDowell was a welcome presence as Dr. Loomis, an interesting choice to play Michael’s psychiatrist. McDowell gives it his all and he comes out with the best performance in the film. Then there is Scout Taylor-Compton as the slightly annoying Laurie Strode, a buttoned up teen with a dark edge according the skulls on her black hoodie. There isn’t really anything that particularly stands out about her and that is precisely her problem. She does prove to audiences that she is a hell of a screamer and her cries of terror could wake the dead. Kristina Klebe and Danielle Harris are on board as Lynda and Annie, Laurie’s friends who lack the fizzy magnetism that they had in the original film but they provide a little eye candy. Brad Dourif is second to McDowell as the skeptical Sheriff Lee Brackett and boy, does he come close to stealing the film from the good doctor. For fans of B-horror, keep a look for cameos from Ken Foree, Udo Kier, Danny Trejo, Clint Howard, Sid Haig, and Sybil Danning, to name a few.

Zombie also makes the wise choice of including the iconic Halloween score, sped up and layered with a few more electronics by Tyler Bates. He adds a few new little synthesizer warbles here and there while paying tribute to the little electronic jolts that Carpenter threw into his film. Zombie applies (unsurprisingly) a grainy and aged look to the film with costumes and sets that are reminiscent of the late 70’s and early 80’s with a gloss of modern caked on. Where the original Halloween sees little to no gore at all throughout its runtime, Zombie brings buckets full of blood and guts to his hillbillies-from-Hell party. I will warn you that the film is exceptionally brutal and grotesque so be prepared and plan accordingly. While I do feel Zombie’s exhausting explanations do take away from some of the horror, I still have to give him credit for staying true to the original film’s story while also daring to add on a fairly engaging prequel. Is the film perfect? Oh no, it certainly isn’t. If someone asked me if I wanted to watch Zombie’s film or Carpenter’s, I’d go with Carpenter’s classic in a heartbeat. Overall, Halloween 2007 could have been much worse but it actually turns out to be a pretty entertaining slasher film with a filthy, razor-sharp edge. I’ll take this ugly beast any day over most other tired and hollow remakes.

Grade: B

Halloween 2007 is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Feature: Kubrick Meets Frankenstein

by Steve Habrat

In many of Stanley Kubrick’s films, we see characters that slowly descend into madness. With this slip into madness, they usually end up committing some sort of atrocity to someone around them. But if we examine these characters descent into madness closely, we can conclude that their madness is created by another character in the films. If we look back at the 1931 film Frankenstein, the structure of Frankenstein seems to fit with the creation of madness and characters becoming monster-like in a good majority of Kubrick’s films. Kubrick could almost be considered the mad scientist of his films, as he takes certain aspects from Frankenstein and uses them to construct several of his films.

If we first look at Kubrick’s 1956 film The Killing, we subtly see a Frankenstein reference within the film. One of the characters, George (Elisha Cook Jr.), is married to Sherry (Marie Windsor) who has no interest in him other than money. George is in on a racecourse robbery with several other men and if the robbery is pulled off, the men can stand to make two million dollars. Near the beginning of the film, we see Sherry with another man named Val (Vince Edwards), who Sherry is having an affair with, as they discuss killing George and the other men and taking the money for themselves. Through the scene, we can see that Sherry is creating a vicious monster and implanting a criminal mentality in Val. At the climax of the film, Val storms an apartment where George and the other men are regrouping after the robbery. A gunfight breaks out and everyone except for George is killed. George ends up making it out of the apartment even though he is severely wounded. He lunges outside and gets into a car and drives off to find Sherry. Sherry has unknowingly created another monster. George is a rather weak man who will not stand up to Sherry in the beginning and at the climax; he is on a murderous quest. Even through George’s movements, he moves very similar to the monster in Frankenstein. He lurches into his home to find Sherry and then viciously guns her down. Sherry is like Henry Frankenstein because she dabbled into an operation that was out of her control and ends up falling victim to her own manipulation. Henry Frankenstein tried to artificially create life when he should have left the natural process of creating life alone. Sherry tries to override the bank robbery and she ends up with a monstrous creation. She has awoken the killer in George and rather than remaining content with what she would have gotten out of the robbery, she was greedy and tried to take it all. While the comparisons are rather minor in The Killing, there still seems to be a hint of influence from Frankenstein in the film.

In 1962, Kubrick released Lolita, and the similarities to Frankenstein appeared once again. In Lolita, the monster takes shape in Humbert (James Mason), who at the beginning of the film has entered the mansion of Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers). Humbert, similar to the monster, seems primitive as he searches the mansion for Quilty. We learn that Humbert is there to kill Quilty for stealing Lolita away from him. Throughout Lolita, we watch as Humbert and the young Lolita begin a sexual relationship. Clare Quilty, who is a famous playwright, is also pursuing Lolita. Near the end of the film, Quilty ends up stealing Lolita away from Humbert and starting an affair with him. Humbert learns of this affair only after some time later when Lolita writes to Humbert that she has married and needs money. Lolita broke off the affair with Quilty after he tries to persuade her to be in one of his films. The spectator can assume that this “film” is of pornographic nature and that Lolita had no interest in Quilty’s perverse vision. Through the act of stealing Lolita away from Humbert, he creates a vengeful monster in Humbert. At the end of the film when Humbert desperately tries to persuade Lolita to come away with him, he takes on the primitive form as he weeps and lunges to his car and sets out to find his “Henry Frankenstein.” Just like in the Frankenstein film, he is out to find his creator and destroy him. This is where we learn that the beginning of the film, which shows us the confrontation between Humbert and Quilty is actually the ending of this story. If we take into account the setting of the climax, which is Quilty’s mansion, it takes on a similarity to the castle that Henry Frankenstein inhabits at the beginning of Frankenstein. So now, we have the monster shuffling about through his creator’s eerie mansion, setting out to commit such atrocities as murder. Humbert proceeds to kill Quilty and is caught shortly after the murder takes place. Similar to Frankenstein’s monster, it is cornered by the law and is captured. While a burning supposedly destroys the Frankenstein monster set by outraged villagers, Humbert dies naturally in the hands of his captors.

In 1964, Kubrick released Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and once again, the Frankenstein structure would be present. This time, however, Kubrick would predominantly use the structure as the backdrop for the film. If we compare the Cold War to the Frankenstein structure, we see some very shocking similarities. We first have to look for a Henry Frankenstein, which could be found in the people who created the nuclear bomb. With all the scientists that helped create the nuclear bomb, we have a large amount of mad scientists or Henry Frankensteins that have created a monster that is a scientific breakthrough. With this breakthrough, we have created a bomb that can level an entire city. Since we have identified the Henry Frankenstein, it becomes obvious that the monster comes in the form of the bomb itself. Just like we will see later with the Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick is using a situation to build the Frankenstein structure for Dr. Strangelove. But we still have to identify a storm that would set off the creation of this monster. That storm could be a hypothetical storm in the form of the Cold War paranoia that was sweeping over the citizens of the United States.

If we explore Dr. Strangelove, we can see the structure of Frankenstein present within the film. We have Brigadier General Jack Ripper who orders a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. General Ripper is the delusional mad scientist who thinks he is doing the United States a favor by protecting our countries “precious bodily fluids.” General Ripper has unleashed this monstrous creation, the nuclear bomb, out into the world where it will cause destruction and death to anyone who is around it when the monster eventually explodes. Kubrick seems to imply that one day, a mock Henry Frankenstein will allow this monster out into the world where, rather than using the monster for scientific study, it will bring about the destruction of humanity. We then watch the helpless creators of this bomb try to race to stop the monsters trail of destruction before it is too late. If we compare Dr. Strangelove to Full Metal Jacket, we can see that Kubrick likes to use the Frankenstein structure to tackle America’s creation and reaction to the conflicts it has found itself in throughout the years. In the case of Dr. Strangelove, it is the Cold War and as we will see in Full Metal Jacket, it is the Vietnam War.

In 1968, Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey, which featured a sequence incredibly similar to the story of Frankenstein. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, we meet a creation named HAL, which is hailed as a scientific breakthrough. HAL 9000 is a computer on board a space station that interacts with the crew of the ship. We learn that HAL is in charge of running the space ships major functions. Also on board the ship are five crewmen, three of which are in a cryogenic hibernation. The two who are not are two scientists named Dave (Keir Dullea) and Francis (Gary Lockwood). The first obvious similarity is that HAL is a creation of scientists just like the monster is in Frankenstein. HAL is deemed a marvel by the media but not necessarily a monster. In Frankenstein, Henry Frankenstein’s fiancé Elizabeth and her friend Victor watch in horror as the monster awakens from his miscellaneous parts. We even get a reaction from the “public”, or in Frankenstein’s case, “the villagers”, as they react in utter horror to the monster and they begin their quest to destroy it. As HAL becomes more and more monstrous, he kills Dave’s partner in their work. If we look at Frankenstein, the monster first kills Fritz, the partner of Henry Frankenstein. Through this murder, and the murder of the three other crewmembers in the cryogenic hibernation, Dave becomes more aware that he has to stop this artificially created monster before it can do more harm, even though it is not necessarily his creation. One could even view the murder of the three helpless crewmembers that are in cryogenic hibernation as the little girl who is murdered by the monster in Frankenstein. She, as the three crewmembers are, are helpless against this strong and dangerous creation. As HAL wanders his own village or castle or in 2001’s case, space station, he searches for Dave as if Dave is the creator. Dave feels the need to destroy the monster in the same vein as the villagers do in Frankenstein. Just as the villagers do, Dave corners HAL and then proceeds to destroy the monster before it can do anymore harm.

With 2001: A Space Odyssey and two of his films that followed, Kubrick really began borrowing from Frankenstein. Kubrick’s next film, A Clockwork Orange, would also have several references to the 1931 horror classic. The first important aspect I want to analyze is the character of Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell) at the beginning of the film. When the events kick into motion, Alex is unruly youth who wanders the futuristic landscape causing trouble and committing unspeakable acts. He is a monster by choice and he doesn’t seem to have a creator. It could almost be said that Alex is his own Henry Frankenstein. But what strikes me as odd is the fact that every time Alex commits a truly horrific crime, he wears a mask. When Alex breaks into the home of Mr. Alexander, Alex and his droogs wear masks while they viciously beat Mr. Alexander and rape his wife. Later in the film, when Alex breaks into the home of the cat lady, he once again dons the same mask. What should be established about Alex is that he is actually a very refined young man. He likes Beethoven and at one point, scolds and physically attacks one of his droogs for making fun of a woman who breaks into Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It seems that when he goes out and causes chaos, we are not seeing the real Alex. When Alex is caught after murdering the cat lady, he is then chosen for a experiment that is supposed to “fix” his destructive behavior. In Thomas Allen Nelson’s Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, Nelson describes the device that holds Alex:

“Later, he is bound in a straightjacket inside a theater—his head wreathed by the straps and electronic plugs of a Frankenstein crown of thorns, his eyes held open by lidlocks—and forced to watch, but not participate in, hackneyed film versions of his past history, namely droogs tolchocking a man (the tramp scene) and raping a devotchka (the casino).” (Nelson, 157)

Nelson describes the device as Frankensteinesque and once Nelson points out the horrific nature of the device, it does seem like the device that creates the monster in Frankenstein. Just as in Frankenstein, the device is going to create a monster, but not a murderous monster. Rather than implanting the brain of a criminal, they are implanting the brain of a normal, harmless citizen. The scientists are making Alex sensitive to the sight of murder and rape. But the execution of this scene does not seem to be a comforting point of the film. This scene is particularly chilling as we are in essence seeing the creation of a new monster. Violence was normal to Alex and now, we see someone who isn’t the same. We see Alex become physically ill by the violence. Another striking aspect of this scene is the use of Beethoven’s music in the background of these images. Could this be suggesting the perversion of a refined brain? It is possible, as the real Alex does not seem to exist after the experiments.

Shortly after the “treatment” that Alex receives by the Henry Frankenstein’s, Alex is then put on display in front of a room of scientists so that can marvel at what a scientific breakthrough that he is. He is called 655321 by his captors and is never referred to by his real name. He has lost his identity, he uniqueness and is now looked at as a science experiment rather than a human being. This seems to go hand and hand with Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein’s monster isn’t an individual and he lacks a name to his creator and his captors. When Alex is presented on the stage to the room of scientists, you almost expect one of them to exclaim, “It’s alive!” just like Henry Frankenstein does when he realizes his experiment is a success. When Alex takes the stage, an actor comes out and proceeds to slap and abuse him. Could this actor be mirroring Fritz, as Fritz taunts and abuses the monster? In Frankenstein, the monster attacks Fritz, but in A Clockwork Orange, when Alex tries to defend himself, he becomes ill at the thought of violence. Alex is a different monster than the monster in Frankenstein, but mad scientists create them both and they both Alex and the monster lack an identity.

Another interesting similarity comes when Alex is released into society. People do not view him as a “reformed” human being, but rather a freak who is part of an experiment. Alex’s parents reject him and have replaced him with a new “son”. Alex then flees his parents flat and wanders the futuristic “village” and is attacked by a group of homeless men who could be mirroring the villagers in Frankenstein. Two policeman break up the attacks on Alex by the homeless men, but then they proceed to beat Alex as well. It turns out, that these two policemen are two of Alex’s former droogs. They take Alex to the outskirts of the town, beat him and then leave him for dead. The droogs also tell Alex they will see him around, almost implying that if Alex shows his face in town again, they will destroy him. Alex, who is left bloodied and covered in mud then shuffles about the outskirts of the “village” in a similar way that Frankenstein’s monster does in Frankenstein. It is also important to point out that Alex is stumbling around in a strong storm. This storm forces Alex to unknowingly seek shelter in the house of Mr. Alexander, whom we have met earlier as Alex and his droogs attacked him. What Alex does not realize is that he has also created a monster in Mr. Alexander, so Alex is the monster and is also a Henry Frankenstein. Because of the storm, which forces Alex to Mr. Alexander’s “castle”, he creates a monster in a storm. Mr. Alexander takes Alex in and realizes he is the boy that the government performed experiments on but he does not recognize Alex is the one who beat him and killed his wife until Alex begins singing “Singin’ in the Rain”, which is what Alex sang during the rape. While Alex sings the song, Mr. Alexander’s monster is awakened. Once again, we almost expect someone to exclaim, “It’s alive!” as Mr. Alexander becomes an entirely different person. Rather than the kind Good Samaritan that took in Alex, he is now the monster who is seeking revenge on his creator. What is also striking is that Mr. Alexander seems to have his own personal Fritz, as Fritz seems to appear in Julian, the man that is residing with Mr. Alexander. Julian performs Mr. Alexander’s dirty work. Mr. Alexander is especially interesting because he acts as monster and destroyer of the monster. Through Mr. Alexander’s vengeance, he almost kills his creator. He drives Alex to try to commit suicide as Alex is becoming physically ill at the sound of Beethoven. This scene is especially intriguing because it could almost mirror the climax of Frankenstein, when the monster throws Henry Frankenstein off of a roof, nearly killing him. Alex is nearly killed and even though he chooses to jump out the window himself, he is still driven to suicide by a monster that he has created. Mr. Alexander also works as outraged villager by destroying the nameless monster that Alex has become. Alex has reverted right back to his old ways of ultra-violence in the end. It is also important to note that Alex has gained his identity back. Alex is recognized as a normal human being by society and his parents rather than some horrific experiment.

The final Kubrick film that has references to Frankenstein is Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. From the first shot of the film, we can tell Kubrick is still interested in borrowing aspects from Frankenstein. We see several men who are receiving haircuts from a military barber. We watch as they all stare blankly at the camera as all of their hair is shaved off. It becomes obvious that this haircut is all just part of the process of turning innocent young men into blank, identical monsters. Shortly after this scene, we are introduced to the man who is acting as the Henry Frankenstein. He goes by the name Gny. Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) and his job is to breakdown this young soldiers and turn them into mindless killing machines. When we first meet Hartman, he tells the young men: “You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings!” Right from the start, Kubrick subtly slips in that these are monsters in progress. If we compare Hartman to Henry Frankenstein, they are in essence the same person. Both Hartman and Frankenstein are both creating mindless monster that will all go out and kill. Just as Frankenstein implants a criminal brain in his creation, Hartman will do the same exact thing. In one particular scene in Full Metal Jacket, Hartman is lecturing about firing weapons to a large group of marines. This is the conversation that takes place in the scene:

Hartman: “Do any of you people know who Charles Whittman was?” (No one raises their hand) “None of you dumbasses knows?”

Pvt. Cowboy: “Sir, he was that guy that shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!”

Hartman: “Anybody know who Lee Harvery Oswald was?”

(Everyone raises their hands)

Pvt. Snowball: “Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!”

The point of this exchange is to show the young maries that killers emerged from the marines and to point out that they were skilled in killing too. Hartman is exactly like Frankenstein in how they both instill criminal mindsets in their monsters.

The first monster that we stumble across in Full Metal Jacket is Pvt. Pyle, who at first seems rather harmless. As the training sequences go on and Hartman gets further into the head of Pyle, we start to see the harmless, clumsy young man descend into madness. During the discussion about Whitman and Oswald, we get a close up shot of Pyle, who has a blank expression on his face and it appears that his eyes are rolling back into his head. His appearance seems almost monstrous like Frankenstein’s monster. What is also notable about the discussion about Whitman and Oswald is that there seems to be a storm brewing in the background. In Frankenstein, the monster is created during a rather violent storm. After this sequence, Pyle seems to be more and more primitive in his actions. This all leads up to Pyle’s murder/suicide that he brutally commits. Pvt. Joker, one of the main characters in the film, is on watch duty one evening and he finds Pvt. Pyle sitting on a toilet with a weapon. When Pyle starts to raise his voice and act out in the typical primitive way, his Henry Frankenstein, who is Hartman, emerges to try to stop his behavior. Pyle then successfully murders Hartman and then turns the gun on himself. Pyle cannot live with what he has become and he acts as terrified villager and kills himself, which destroys the monster.

After this training and murder/suicide sequence, the film then travels to Vietnam, which is what the soldiers are training for. This is where we begin to follow to other monsters that were created by Hartman’s Henry Frankenstein. We follow Pvt. Joker and Pvt. Cowboy and their experiences in Vietnam that climaxes in their showdown with a Vietnamese sniper. What is interesting about Pvt. Joker’s appearance is that he has written on his helmet. Scrawled across his helmet says Born To Kill and at one point, he gives an explanation as to why he has that written on his helmet. I believe that this keeps tradition with the installation of the criminal mindset. Joker was installed with a criminal mind and, just like Frankenstein’s monster, was born to kill. Pvt. Joker and Pvt. Cowboy seem less monstrous until they are faced with this sniper. When the group of soldiers that they are traveling with gets attacked and several of their men get killed, they decide to storm the building that the sniper is located in and kill them. Joker eventually stumbles upon the sniper and just as he gets ready to shoot the sniper, his gun jams and he gives away his position. Just as tries to go for his pistol, another marine storms in and kills the sniper. What is important to not about this scene is that the sniper is a young, terrified girl and the abandoned building that she hides in is burning. The marines all stand around the young girls body and try to figure out what to do with her, as she lies dying. They all have the smallest bit of remorse on their face, similar to the monster in Frankenstein. What is interesting about the fire that surrounds them is the fact that it was fire that killed Frankenstein’s monster. Could Kubrick be implying that these men will all burn for being the monsters that they are? They are one big group of created monsters, who after killing the young Vietnamese girl, march on while casually singing the Mickey Mouse theme song. They march on and sing a children’s song and they never stop to reflect on the violence that they inflict. They are marching about a primitive looking environment where terrified villagers are trying to corner these strange monsters and destroy them. What is also interesting is that we strictly see the marine’s silhouettes. We do not see any detail and it becomes impossible to distinguish one from the other. These men are one collective, primitive and created monster that lunges through the night and kills.

Another interesting aspect of Full Metal Jacket is that Kubrick decided to explore the Vietnam War. America entered the Vietnam War with the intentions to help the southern part of Vietnam fight back against Communists from northern Vietnam. But as the years passed and the death toll of American troops kept rising, the Vietnam War started becoming extremely unpopular. If we compare the Vietnam War to Frankenstein, we can start to see some similarities. We first have to look for the “mad scientist”, or in this case “scientists”, which could be the U.S. Senate and President Johnson for the escalation of involvement in the conflict. The war last from 1964 to 1975 and every year the war lasted, it spiraled more and more out of control. So the Henry Frankenstein’s in the case of the Vietnam War would be the U.S. Senate and President Johnson and their monstrous creation would then have to be the Vietnam War. If we look at the American backlash of the Vietnam War, we could even say that the American public was the outraged villagers. They protested the creation of the monster. Young men did not want to be sent to die in a war that they were unclear on. If we look at the similarities of the war and the film to Frankenstein, Kubrick was referencing Frankenstein of multiple levels. It clearly emerged in certain scenes, situations and characters within Full Metal Jacket and it if we looked close enough; it was in the subject matter that Kubrick was using as the backdrop for the film.

In 1999, Stanley Kubrick released his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, which thematically seems to be interested in other topics. It does not seem to borrow from Frankenstein and seems to have other interests on its mind. I believe that these similarities are quite striking and seem to dominate much of his later work. While Eyes Wide Shut and his 1975 film Barry Lyndon seem to steer away from these trends, I believe that Kubrick was heavily interested in the creation of monsters. The Frankenstein structure is just one of the layers to Kubrick’s multilayered films. This is what has made Kubrick so fascinating, that the more you study his films and peel back the layers, the more you will find. In this case, Kubrick is a regular Henry Frankenstein. He has created some films that we are still marveling over after all these years.

Works Cited

Nelson, Thomas A. Kubrick: Inside A Film Artist’s Maze. Pg. 157. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000. Retrieved: 9 Dec, 2009 Print.

The Killing is now available on Blu-ray for the first time. The Kubrick Collection is also available.