All around is darkness, and who knows what lies in it. Your high power flashlight barely penetrates the gloom, and you could swear you see something moving. Life should not be here, yet somehow, it is. Where are you? Millions of miles away in the cold depths of space? A thousand miles lost in a massive, dank, lifeless cavern? No, you are merely a few miles away from the normal. You are on the ocean floor.

Why is it that nearly a quarter million miles away (the surface of the moon) is more acceptable and less terrifying than five miles below the water? Why does the claustrophobia of a deep-sea submarine weigh in more than the endless vacuum of space that has honestly less material between you and it? And why can we talk about putting astronauts on the surface of Mars as a feasible, decade-attainable goal, but setting up a space-station like research facility or mining/living operation even a few miles down in the ocean is still a complete idea of science fiction? It isn’t just because we don’t want Cthulhu to eat us.

Well, an obvious, scientific answer is that the Ocean is quite a bit more of a challenge, technically speaking. Once you are in space, you are in space. You are in a vacuum, and if you can survive solar winds to get away from Earth to begin with, you have gotten past the worst part. But the ocean, well, that is a whole other ball of wax. The deeper you go, the stronger your craft as to be, down to seven miles at Challenger Deep with 8 tons per square inch. So far, only mini submersibles have gotten people to these depths. Imagine trying to build a city or station down there?

But there is more to it than that. Why else would Lovecraft place R’lyeh in the depths of the Ocean? Why else would James Cameron be actually on point to go back down to Challenger Deep just to get some footage for Avatar II? (I wish that was a joke.) I even just finished reading a Lovecraftian style story by John Wyndham, The Kraken Awakes, from 1953 that never even had to visit the Deeps to make us fear them.

I think, in part, it is because the place is just not inhospitable to us, it seems to mock us. Life does exist down where it just plain seems it should not, and not just microbes. No, we are talking some strange stuff. One would wonder if Lovecraft was actually somewhat prescient in the hideous imaginings he had. Add to it that the place is devoid of sunlight. Any light we do bring with us just doesn’t go as far as we’d like in the dark murk. And let us not forget the recent watery discovery of microbes that don’t even use the same building blocks of life as everything else on the planet. (And yes, I know Mona Lake isn’t that deep, but it is still watery and inhospitable, arsenic and all that.)

And this shows in our legends and myths. Still to this day sailors are superstitious, even without going below the surface. I can’t say I’ve ever heard the same of aviators or astronauts. (No, they are just extremely paranoid, which isn’t quite the same). You don’t hear astronauts worry over meeting aliens, not seriously. After all, we can see what is out in space for quite a ways. People are still trying to catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster, though, and salty enough sailors probably can tell you some monster stories of their own.

So tell me, any particular frightening aspects of the deep ocean that captivate your minds?

To the main body of today’s post, I watched a movie called “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.” It was actually a rather new production that was made to resemble the old b-movie low-budget horror films of fifty years ago. It was amazingNow, this surprises me. Usually, I don’t like movies that try to be bad-funny. In example, I don’t really care for Evil Dead 2, although I loved Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. The difference is Evil Dead was truly bad-funny, Army of Darkness was honestly just funny, but Evil Dead 2 was a “well, I accidentally made a comedy when I meant to make a horror, let’s do it again!”.

Yet, Lost Skeleton actually worked for me. It had so many of the old tropes that are still in use today, even if in much more mature forms. In fact, the movie felt like a bit of an homage to where Sci-Fi and Horror have come from. It had a re-animated skeleton, aliens, and evil scientist, a good scientist, and a mutant. It had the grim farmer on the side of the road that gives directions to ominous locations, laced with likewise dark warnings. It had the hapless local authority that didn’t believe in the legends.

It also had the mark of good acting and good writing, which is to say the ability to write badly while not actually writing badly. A similar example I would point to was John Sclazi’s April Fools joke: The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City. He spent a long paragraph saying “it was a dark and stormy night”, and did it in one sentence! And yet, it wasn’t totally painful to read, like actual bad writing that is often found in fan fiction or under author’s bed where they keep their first manuscript in an airtight sarcophagus.

So, to be short for once, “Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” his hilarious. You should watch it, preferably with friends and booze. You won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, so I went and saw Shutter Island last night.  I had been told ahead of time to not expect your normal Sorcese or DiCaprio film, but I was still mildly optomistic, at least from the previews.  What I got was not quite what was advertised. (spoilers below fold).

So, what was I expecting?  I psychological thriller, duh, but I guess from the previews I was expecting something a little more mentally confusing.  As far as psych-ward thrillers go, it was pretty slow, though.  The scenes felt like they dragged out, and honestly barely kept me engaged enough to wonder what was coming next.  The dénouement dragged out, and what I think were supposed to riviting dream/hallucination sequences were stilted and almost boring.

Now that I’ve been scathing, what the movie did right: the last line was actually pretty powerful, even with all the baggage that was taken to set it up (ie, the whole movie).  And DiCaprio’s performance was usually pretty good, although he was a far more “broken” character than I had been led to believe from the trailer.  His neurosis was of a different kind that one usually sees, with flips from paranoia to rage to depression.  The only issue I had with his character, really, was more of a scripting issue than an acting one, as the movie in general is prone to very long strains of Talking Heads’ Exposition, even in hallucinations.

One thing that was rather good, though, was how Scorsese et al managed to capture the “hear what you want to hear, see what you want to see” part of schizophernia.  After you find out he is crazy, one can see how everything he heard, all the conversations he had, were him only hearing and seeing what he wanted.  Granted, you find out that the island personel are actually partaking in a giant Role Play with him, but still.

The music was pretty good, even when it was somehow off someway.  It was like the pieces that did not quiet fit added to the whole “not quite right” feeling.  The cinematography did the same, as the cuts often seemed jerky, with people in the wrong pose or stance in the second cut, only to be back in the original stance in the third.  Whether this was intentional or not, I do not know, but I want to think Scorsese would be veteran enough in the director’s chair to let something as simple as that escape him.

So, on the whole, I think I have to squint my eyes and say “I see what you did there” without being really affected by it.  The exposition, not to mention the lack of chemistry between DiCaprio and his hallucinations, pushed the envelope a little far on the almost experimental style of the movie.  It isn’t per se a “skip it” movie, but I’d recommend catching it on a matinee, or perhaps waiting for it to hit the cheap theaters or even DVD.  Just expect it to play with your mind in different ways that you are used to.  Subsequent rewatches may prove to better the experience, but at $9.50 a ticket, I’ll pass on finding out.

See, it is rather simple.  American Horror films are morality flicks.  Don’t believe me?  OK, who is the survivor?  With rare exception, the chaste, semi-religious, generally all-around good person.  Who dies?  The characters who are, typically, two dimensional pastiches of a sin or vice.  Oh, they usually die because of their vices, too.  Tell me that isn’t a morality film.

So, why does this bother me?  Well, aside from the rather thin veneer of sloppily put together story, I can’t say I really care for heavy handed morality in the fire-and-brimstone fashion.  I am already an a. moral person (not amoral, just ambiguously moral), and my rule-of-thumb is “who’s it gonna hurt?”  Oh, and yes, I consider damage to others, and myself, on spiritual/mental levels in addition to physical.  So having people doing things that, in most cases, are rather harmless things (enjoying a frolick with someone, taking a shortcut, occasionally looking out for themselves first, even being a hair bit cowardly, or being (really) brave).  All these things, while not the most “moral” of activities, really don’t hurt someone, and even have advisedness to them sometimes.

Now, notice that I made the distinction of American Horror.  This fable-like nature seems to be oddly missing from things from across the seas.  Japanese horror is much more psychological in how it messes with the audience and the protagonist, and what European horror I’ve seen tends towards the straight up bizarre.  They don’t overly rely on sudden shocks or flashes to get a scare, and their monsters, while not always the best looking CG wise, can evoke a certain sense of dread that is what Horror should be about.  Not a lesson on who to be.

This is oddly converse to the heavy handed morals of Star Trek, which I love.  Maybe it is because those are less puritanical and more humanitarian, and perhaps it is because it is a positive reinforcement instead of a negative one.  A hopeful, wonderful future where the main characters are good people for the most part and prevail, or a dark world where people die for straying from the straight and narrow.  Not a hard choice, as I see it.