Medium Spoilers for 1998’s Dark City Ahead

In the late 1990s, a film came out unlike any other. A confused young man lived in a nameless city that he found out was built on a lie. He’s initiated into deeper understanding and power by a mysterious and cryptic mentor figure. He’s opposed by the city’s jailers while themselves trapped by the thing they built to keep humans under lock and key.

I ask you, dear Guests...if I were to say this without any hints upfront, would you think I was talking about anything other than The Matrix? Mind, that description does fit with it. However there is one other film that matches with it that came out the previous year. It even used some of the same sets (pay particular attention to the rooftops and bottom of the stairwell). It was a strange, surreal cult film that grounded its look and plot in early 20^th Century German Expressionism. And as with all subjects we discuss in the Palace, it deserves to be better-known.

So...tonight, I present you with one of the oddest 1990s films not directed by David Lynch: Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas. It was also written by him with David S Goyer and Lem Dobbs.

One brief note first: I’m basing this review on the excellent Directors Cut my mom gave me as a Christmas present. But even before that, I watched this film obsessively during an unhappy period of my life. So I will be pointing out a few differences between this and the theatrical cut where appropriate.

Right, onward...

The Curtain Of Night Rises

The opening of Dark City is easily the biggest change between theatrical and director’s cuts. In the former, a raspy voice (spoken by Kiefer Sutherland) intones a long monologue that basically gives away two-thirds of the film’s surprises.

So...because I am anti-spoiler as a rule, here’s another recommendation if you’re watching the theatrical: mute that part. Wait until the watch is pulled out. Okay, here’s the director’s version…

We open on a vast starscape before the camera begins panning down. It goes for a long way before it run through a bank of clouds, then a cityscape at night (heavily inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis). This setup makes me think Proyas got the idea for this shot from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

We finally settle on Sutherland’s character, who’s wearing a plain brown suit that looks early 20th Century. He walks with a limp and the right side of his face is mildly deformed. He glances at his pocketwatch, ticking ever closer to midnight. When the second hand finally hits the twelve mark, the watch stops cold. He gives a weird grin while putting the watch away and limping off into the darkness.

After some brief opening credits, we shift to outside a multi-story hotel before the camera pushes into the nearest bathroom. An unconscious man (played by Rufus Sewell) is laying in the bathtub while the overhead light swings back and forth.

He comes to with a start. Once he gets out, he slips and slides his way across the forest green tile to the fogged-up mirror. It’s clear he’s got no more an idea of how he wound up here than we do. After getting on his clothes, he finds an old postcard from somewhere called Shell Beach. That triggers some vague wisps of memory that get interrupted when the room phone rings.

Our twisted man is on the other end. He’s talking a mile a minute and not making a hell of a lot of sense. He calls himself a doctor, pointing out our mystery bather has lost his memories due to an experiment. Oh and somebody’s coming our mystery man needs to avoid...like, now.

Mystery Man drops the phone when he sees something on the side of the bed. Specifically, a dead female body with bloody spirals carved on the bare chest. That gives him the incentive to GTFO and just in time too. A trio of pale, trenchcoated figures—small, medium and large (I swear I’m not making that up)—get off the elevator just as he hits the stairs.

Once Mystery Man gets to the lobby, he finds literally everybody around him asleep. This includes a woman in a phone booth, still cradling the receiver. There’s a sudden flicker of lights just when everyone wakes up, including the desk clerk (played by Edward Grant). The latter calls Mystery Man “Mr Murdoch” and advises him that his wallet is at the Automat (a restaurant where meals are served through a vending machine...did I mention the first one was in 1895 Berlin?).

While Murdoch goes to retrieve his lost property, the clerk goes up to his room. Too bad for him the trio from before are still there. The shortest one (played by legendary writer/actor Richard O’Brien) asks a simple, sinister question: “Mr Murdoch, yes?” After confirming Murdoch’s gone, Short Ghoul puts the clerk to sleep with a command.

We cut to a nightclub, where a singer (played by Jennifer Connelly) is singing to the crowd (polished vocals in the theatrical version, a bit off-key in the director’s cut...there’s a reason for the latter BTW). After the performance, a coworker hands her a card for a Dr Daniel Paul Schreber, saying it’s about her husband.

Turns out Schreber is our twisted man from the beginning, now sporting a mad scientist coat from the Dr Frankenstein collection. While he performs a self-confessed “crude experiment” involving rats in a maze, he probes our singer Emma Murdoch on her husband John’s whereabouts. She knows nothing, including the fact that her hubby was even seeing this freak.

Schreber gives her a story about how John has been his patient, stemming from their “marital difficulties”. He lets her go but asks her to keep him apprised. He doesn’t even show her out. He’s too busy playing with his rats.

Our final major player enters to the gentle sound of accordion music. He plays the instrument next to the window when it’s interrupted by a phone call that annoys him. Turns out he’s Inspector Bumstead and he’s caught the case of the dead body at the hotel. It’s far from the first. She’s simply the latest victim in a string of serial killings involving call girls.

Oh and Bumstead wasn’t the first guy on this case either. His predecessor Eddie Walenski (played by Colin Friels) bursts in. His babbling makes Schreber’s earlier phone call sound like a news report. Walenski keeps yelling about there’s no way out and how “they’re” watching us. His disorder is a match for his old office, overflowing with junk and files and less sanitary things.

So...confused yet? Perfectly understandable, dear Guests. All of what I describe is likely why the theatrical cut included that spoiler-heavy monologue. But I can promise this...every question you have right now is answered before the film’s end. And that is all I shall say in terms of major features of the plot.

Personally, I think our time would be better spent dealing with our major players. Beginning with Mr. Murdoch.

The Blanked Slate

As should be obvious, John Murdoch is pretty much a total amnesiac. Despite a few fleeting memories, he’s pretty much in the same position we are for the whole film. He roams the warped streets (taking their cue from Cabinet Of Dr Calagari) for answers. His only clues are his few possessions and what he can deduce from them.

His particular obsession is Shell Beach, the one thing he can remember. He constantly asks people how to get there. Everybody’s heard of it but not one of them can point the way. Even the train line, which promises a route, only has an “Express” that nobody seems to be able to get on.

One can hardly blame John for wanting to get out of this city. Its own quirks shows it’s anything but a safe place. For one thing, there’s never any daylight here. For another, every twelve hours, the entire population goes to sleep...except for him.

Lucky him, John gets to stay awake while the buildings and streets reshape themselves in an unnerving, organic fashion. The people get changed too. They’re put in new places, given new clothes and given forehead injections that look very painful.

Small wonder why this all stresses him out. When the stress gets too much, he exhibits an odd form of telekinesis called “Tuning” by his pursuers. He can use it to widen cracks in a floor, push around objects with his mind, even make doors appear on previously blank walls. Tellingly, the beings going after him are every bit as shocked as he is on how he can do this.

In some ways, John’s like an actor who didn’t get his script. Newspaper clippings have him pegged as a mass murderer. But it’s anything but the truth. What lies under that truth? That it’s easier to go with the flow instead of finding your own way.

Even without telekinesis, that truth makes John Murdoch the most dangerous man in this city. But it also makes him very lost and alone. How many of us who have gone against the grain have been there?

The Frustrated Seeker

When it comes to a thirst for answers, Inspector Bumstead is actually very similar to John. There is one key difference. Bumstead’s already inside the script his unseen jailers have laid out.

He does his best to work within the structural confines but it keeps getting him nowhere. As he tells Emma, “No one ever listens to me.” At one point, he goes deeper into his frustration while yelling at John:

The pieces he has to work with are some doozies, the kind that don’t fit with the reality he’s being told. He finds them in Walenski’s ravings, Schraber’s too cute answers to his questions, odd tics he sees in Anna’s behavior. Even his own memories of his accordion make him suspicious. He got it from his late mother...yet can’t remember any of the details on how that happened.

All this finally pushes Bumstead to help John. He knows the truth is out there. And that the only way it’s coming is if he takes extreme steps. It ends in a good news/bad news situation. The good news is he finds what he’s looking for. The bad? Finding it has him suffer a very ugly fate.

Too many folks lean hard on the saw “the truth will set you free.” To me, Bumstead’s arc speaks of what that “freedom” can cost you. Sometimes, it’s more than the seeker can possibly imagine.

The Deformed Doctor

Dr Daniel Paul Schreber occupies a privileged position in the city’s hidden hierarchy. Just as the Strangers (as he calls the city’s hidden overlords) remix the city layouts, so he remixes the citizenry’s memories where appropriate. He even gets a little joy from his random combinations and sending those into their skulls.

That said, none of this changes certain facts. Like how he’s just a skilled, useful slave to the Strangers. How his existence only continues by their sufferance. How there’s a better than decent chance they may dispose of him like they have so many others. Most of the time, Schreber’s scientific curiosity is able to keep his pain at bay. So are his constant visits to the public baths, whose waters repel the Strangers just like sunlight does.

But for all his fawning, he knows that this life is far from enough. As revealed late in the film, being in his masters’ service has left a lot of scars in its wake. But he sees no way out of it...until John does his Tuning. That makes Schreber feel hope for the first time in forever.

Still, it doesn’t move him towards any kind of nobility. He still manipulates, acts cowardly and makes moves that are morally grey at best. Even so, when he’s pushed to his absolute limits, Schreber winds up doing his fellow prisoners a long overdue solid. It almost makes up for him being part of this harmful system...almost.

I’m quite parched at the moment, dear Guests.

Buy Me A Tea?

The Lost Woman

If you’re expecting Emma Murdoch to be a prototype of Trinity from The Matrix, I’m going to have to disappoint you, dear Guests. Mostly, she serves a sort of story GPS for Bumstead, taking him to the places he needs to go to. That sadly leaves her with some of the least character to explore.

In some ways, I’d say that makes sense. She’s a stand-in for the rest of the city’s numbed, manipulated populace. All of them going through their night-to-night life as best they can. All of them hoping for better things that never show. All of them dead inside, never questioning things like John, Bumstead or even Walenski.

With that said, there are three scenes where we get a feel for her character. The first is John’s appearance in their apartment, which wakes up things inside her. When she confronts him with making her worried, his confusion and fear from the amnesia cuts it short.

His confession of being with a call girl to test himself makes her heart go out to him. Indeed, her simple “I believe you” speaks volumes about her feelings. It’s enough to have her help him get away from Bumstead right after. Her love for him means more than doing what’s “right”.

The other key scene to their relationship is at the police station where John is in custody. It is such a special moment that I’ll only say a little about this. Two things, to be exact.

First, Emma gives John the best declaration of true love I have seen in any film. With those words, she declares that her feelings mean more than what the actual facts are. Second, film scenes of lovers separated by jail contain vital foreshadowing. They point to where the relationship is ultimately going to wind up. This end of this scene is no exception.

Oh, wait, I mentioned three scenes, didn’t I? In fact, the last one comes between these two. But to truly appreciate this, we need to approach our last player on the field.

The Pale Shadow

The time has come to formally meet Short Ghoul AKA Mr Hand. In a real way, despite the distinctive goth costuming (heavily inspired by Max Schreck’s vampire in Franz Murnau’s Nosferatu), he’s Agent Smith to John Murdoch’s Neo.

At first glance, he seems a fairly typical member of the Strangers, a telekinetic race with a collective memory that use the pronouns “we” and “our”. His ability to instantly knock out humans with a simple “Sleep now” makes him stand out a little. But his albino skin, dark coat and hat and totally cold affect marks him a charter member.

The first turning point for him is when his sleeping trick doesn’t work on John (the eye blink he gives that moment is quietly epic). Between that and watching John use his Tuning, he grows obsessed. Out of all the humans in this city, why him? What makes him unique enough to do all this?

His questions actually cut to the heart of the Strangers’ dilemma. See, they’re not just running humans through these nightly experiments for kicks. All of them have a definite purpose towards helping them out of a dilemma their long-lived race has no answer for. John’s existence makes them collectively think he may be part of the solution.

This makes Mr Hand come up with an audacious plan. He has Schreber whip up with another copy of John’s memories. When they’re made, he has himself injected with them over the objections of his fellow Strangers. The stated reason is so Mr Hand can better track John down. But I’m fairly certain this had more to do with Mr Hand’s personal curiosity.

The scene between him and Emma points to this. They get philosophical about places and the memories they stir. The Directors Cut gets more explicit about this, having Hand allude to how different his race’s memory and thought processes are. You can feel him drinking in Emma’s reactions like a thirsty man guzzling water. By the time he walks away, he’s certain that he’s learned something important.

But he really hasn’t. In fact, his reasons for this whole plan is flawed AF. As John points out in their final conversation, the only thing Hand winds up learning is how John was supposed to feel. That’s a far cry from the way John wound up feeling. This Stranger started with a flawed premise and never once let the facts actually correct his course.

Small wonder why, in the end, the answers Mr Hand seeks ultimately exceed his grasp. He meets his end as lost as ever. What John could have been was never going to get him to where John actually wound up.

Breaking Of The Dawn

Much like the rest of Dark City, the ending is best experienced with as few spoilers as possible. I will say that daylight breaks, that John finally gets where he wants to go and there’s a bittersweet tinge to the final moments.

And perhaps that is the final lesson of this remarkable film. It’s possible to get the answers in the end. But there will always be a price. Still, dear Guests, the steepness of that price should never dissuade you from paying it. The truth, whatever form it takes, is always better than the lie.

Thankfully, this film is easy to find on streaming (as of this writing, it’s available on Tubi, the Roku Channel and Sling TV for free and all other major platforms for a small fee). But if you truly like it as I do? You owe it to yourself to get the Directors Cut.

But regardless of which version you watch, I do hope that it winds up taking your thinking past this city’s limits.

Buy Me A Tea?

As an anthology show, Twilight Zone was such a unique experience, it has gone on to drown out all other TV anthologies. That’s no small feat, dear Guests. As I’ve mentioned before, there were a lot of those between the 1950s and the 1980s. But few of them lasted or even made a lasting impression. As true for Playhouse 90 and One Step Beyond in the 1950s as it was for 1980s series like Jim Henson’s The Storyteller or Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories (FYI, we’ll speak more of Spielberg in a while).

Tonight’s subject is going to be arguably the most prominent anthology show of the 1970s, Night Gallery. You may recall our last visit, dear Guests, where we looked at the show’s groundbreaking H P Lovecraft adaptations...

But tonight? We’re going back to where it all began. The pilot episode that made this televised art collection regular viewing for many.

An important if frustrating note: despite having the bulk of this series, the pilot is completely unavailable on Amazon Prime. While I managed to watch it on a bootleg site, that’s always less than reliable. Therefore, for this episode and the rest, I suggest getting the complete DVD collection off eBay. As of this writing, the average price for one is between $15 and $20.

Okay, that out of way, let us walk through the doors…

A Macabre Greeting

The opening sequence is extremely different from the show’s later psychedelic intro. Thanks to a zooming camera, we pass through a series of hand-drawn sketches of a corridor. Along the way, more sketches pop up, showing off the actors in the stories that will follow. There’s even one of Rod Serling, who is the writer of everything we are about to see.

We finally come to a halt in a black space, dominated by three massive frames covered in crimson drapes. Directly in front of them is Mr Serling...

I should mention something else that differs from the regular series here. The actual Night Gallery episodes start with a painting to set the mood. Here, though Serling pulls down the curtains, we never see the picture until after the story concludes. In the case of the final story, that’s a necessity.

Anyway, when Mr Serling drops the first cloth, our first story begins...

Dead...And Buried?

After this intro, we find ourselves outside—then inside—a plantation home owned by the elderly, infirm Mr Hendricks. It overlooks the gated family cemetery just across the way. Hendricks is waited on by his black butler, Osmund Portifoy (played by Ossie Davis). Portifoy sees to his employer’s wants and needs as best he is able. But there’s only so much he can do. Hendricks’ biggest desire is to paint, as seen by the artwork decorating the walls. Thanks to his recent strokes, all he can do is drop any brush he grabs. The poor man can’t even speak.

As if he didn’t have enough troubles, there’s one other resident who’s less than kind to this old man. That would be Hendricks’ nephew Jeremy Evans (played by Roddy McDowell with gleeful nastiness wrapped in a hambone Southern accent). He’s a ne’er-do-well who’s just waiting for the old man to die. Having seen his uncle’s correspondence, he knows he stands to inherit everything.

Do I even need to say how much Jeremy and Portifoy despise each other? The latter flat-out calls the former “a swine” when asked. Sure, Portifoy may be sore about losing out on inheriting from Mr Hendricks. But to lose it to this piece of shit? I can hardly blame him, dear Guests.

To the surprise of nobody, Jeremy engineers Hendricks’ coma and subsequent demise. He doesn’t even bother with the funeral arrangements, leaving them to the doctor. After, he’s got all that money and a big house to enjoy.

But there’s something amiss. It centers around a painting of the house and nearby family cemetery, hanging on the stairs. Every time Jeremy looks at it, something changes. First, he sees a freshly dug grave where his uncle is buried. Then the coffin being uncovered. Then the lid coming off to show the body. It’s like a time-lapse picture in motion, one that unsettles Jeremy with each new change.

Portifoy claims to see nothing wrong. But Jeremy insists that there’s something there. At one point, he even burns the painting in the fireplace...only for it to wind up back on the wall. The viewer is left to wonder if this is all in Jeremy’s head.

McDowell’s performance sells Jeremy’s growing panic perfectly. But he also manages the trickier feat of keeping Jeremy unsympathetic. His fear has nothing to do with a guilty conscience. And everything to do with the man he killed possibly about to return the favor.

Needless to say, things eventually comes to a head. The ending is grim, containing not one but two twists I never saw coming. Those twists have made me love this segment less than than other Night Gallery fans. It just felt...wrong to me. But maybe I was expecting clear-cut morality where I really, really shouldn’t have.

Stephen King once said this of his good friend Harlan Ellison’s stories: sometimes there are survivors, sometimes not. The same applies to this story. It perfectly channels the dark pessimism that will inform the rest of the series.

Eyes Wide Shut

Our next segment, “Eyes”, is easily the most famous and best of the pilot. It marked the first breakout work of one Steven Spielberg. This first example of his wonderful storytelling, aided by a good cast and Serling’s script (adapted from his own novella in The Season To Be Wary), just carries things along.

Dr. Frank Heatherton (played by TV regular Barry Sullivan) comes to the apartment building owned by the aforementioned Ms. Menlo (played by Mommy Dearest herself, Joan Crawford). Despite living in the penthouse, she is this building’s only resident. Quite a view she has too...which she’s unable to see due to being blind since birth. As she tells the doctor, she has never known justice from anyone, “starting with God.”

But now she has found a means to temporarily overcome her blindness. She confirms the doctor has a procedure that can restore her sight for roughly eleven to thirteen hours. The only thing needed is someone willing to give away their optic nerves for good. Small wonder why Heatherton balks...at least until Miss Menlo presents him with blackmail material that makes refusal very unwise.

If we might pause here a moment, dear Guests...it strikes me that this is a fairly atypical portrayal of a blind person. Especially in TV of this era, most follow the noble Helen Keller mold. But that’s not happening when you’re being played by Joan Crawford. She is every bit as ruthless and commanding as Serling described her. The subtext of her wrath is an insatiable envy. What good is her vast art collection if she lacks the means to see it?

Then we meet our donor, Sidney Resnick (played by Tom Bosley), a small-time hood who is $9000 in debt. After being tormented in a unique way by his loan shark, he promises he’ll have the money tomorrow afternoon. The loan shark agrees and we follow him into the office of Miss Menlo’s lawyer.

If you only know Bosley as Howard Cunningham from Happy Days or as Father Dowling, this performance might be a revelation. He’s the exact opposite of Miss Menlo, someone who lived long enough to see his life go down the toilet. His constant patter and sad sack demeanor makes me think of an older version of Jackie Rhoades from Twilight Zone’s “Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room”.

Watching him in the lawyer’s office is honestly heartbreaking. This is a man who has been tore down by life. He’s always cooperative because he knows there are no real choices left. He tries to put a happy face on it, talking about how he’s seen everything. But when he asks if he’ll be able to cry after the operation is done, you feel like crying yourself.

The worst part is how he talks about the gambling addiction that got him into this mess. Before giving odds on how soon he does to himself what they’re about to do to his eyes.

From there, the operation happens in a nice artistic montage that shows off Spielberg’s excellent directing chops. Her freshly-installed eyes wrapped under bandages, Miss Menlo prepares herself to look at her art collection. She can’t wait to take all the mental pictures she can of it. Once she dismisses Dr Heatherton for the last time, she wastes no time taking the bandages off.

For a moment, all is what she wants. And then...a complication.

To say more would be to give too much away. All I can say is this sequence is every bit as good as our intro to Resnick. Spielberg gives everything a jagged, off-kilter feel, letting suggestion fill in most of the blanks. At least until we find out why things have gone awry.

That same artistry absolutely applies to the ending, with irony as thick as any Twilight Zone conclusion. It helps you understand why Spielberg catapulted to the big leagues after this.

Buy Me A Tea?

Painted Into A Corner

Said story begins in a rundown apartment. Strobe, a scarred man who looks as worn down as his surroundings (and played by Richard Kiley), wakes up from a nightmare. Only it isn’t over. Every little noise he hears in the dark brings to mind remembered horrors of his past. The thundering German we hear is a heavy enough hint.

Just in case we’re still unclear, his prostitute neighbor Gretchen (played by Norma Crane) fills in the blanks after Strobe runs off a would-be client. Strobe’s a Nazi war criminal on the run, still torn apart by what he did at Auschwitz. Now that Adolf Eichmann has long since been tried and hanged, he’s at the top of Mossad’s list.

As the next scene shows, Mossad is actively looking for him. A pair of Israeli agents sketch out his background as one Gruppenfuhrer Helmut Arndt, formerly of the SS. They list a catalog of his movements throughout the continent before the senior one (played by George Murdock) says how he’s convinced their prey is in this city.

Small wonder why Strobe/Arndt is constantly on the move, fleeing from pursuers both real and imagined. One hiding place he runs to (ironically, what he thought were pursuers are actually just cruising for girls to pick up) is an art museum. As he walks around the paintings, he runs into a Holocaust survivor named Bleum (played by Sam Jaffe).

Bleum seems to recognize him, leading him to probes Strobe a bit. Naturally, the fugitive denies everything and the survivor leaves him be. Then Strobe notices a painting of a peaceful pastoral scene, a lake in the mountains with a lone fisherman out on the water. This is underscored by a sentimental German tune we faintly hear (an original made by in-house composer Billy Goldenberg). The picture draws him in until closing time.

In the days that follow, he keeps coming back to the museum, to that specific painting. He begins to feel as if he can put himself inside of it, on the boat. All it would take is just enough focus and he’d be there for good. Too bad for him that the real world is far from done with him.

One night, he gets epically drunk at a bar before making things worse for himself. Smashing up a guitar, he gives a boozy, obnoxious rendition of “Horst Wessel Lied”, the WWII-era Nazi theme song. Stumbling out the door, he runs into Bleum one last time. That confrontation pushes him to make his final escape attempt.

Fugitive Nazis were a common staple of 1960s pop folklore. They usually got the Bond villain treatment, suave monsters whose style is only matched by their brutality. In fact, Serling used just such a figure in his Twilight Zone episode “Deathshead Revisited”.

But Kiley’s portrayal of Strobe/Arndt is a repudiation of every related stereotype. Yes, he’s clearly lacking in remorse and unrepentant over what he did. It’s just it’s also broken him as a person. Whether it’s Mossad agents or the memories torturing him night and day, he’s constantly running from something. The strain is more than enough to make any escape look good. Especially if it promises to get back what he had before.

As played by Crane, Gretchen is an interesting character in her own right. Unlike her Nazi neighbor, she feels no remorse whatsoever about her choices, job included. She gives no more thought to her work than a factory worker. It allows her to see the world with very clear eyes. You’d think calling out Strobe’s sins to his face would be dangerous. But despite his outbursts of violence, Gretchen has no fear of him. Inside and out, she knows exactly what kind of man he is. He’s more of a threat to himself than to her.

Showing’s End

I will not speak of the final painting.

No, that last picture wasn’t it.

But I will say this. Once it gets unveiled, Serling looks at the camera, says “Good evening” and walks off like a boss.

After that final image? Truly nothing else need be said.

After this tour de force, small wonder why Night Gallery was made into a full series. Be assured, dear Guests, we’ll be seeing more exhibits from the Gallery in future.

But for now, I believe I shall take my cue from Mr Serling. Good evening...

Buy Me A Tea?

Medium To Major Spoilers Ahead For Arkham Knight and the Batman Arkham series

Arguably, dear Guests, the early 21^st Century has been the time for superheroes. And in my humble opinion? No one superhero has symbolized Gen X fandom (especially the white male cishet variety) more than Batman.

Yes, the MCU became the leading superhero property of the 2010s. But Batman, a superhero who built it all himself, tapped into many Gen X myths of self-improvement through education and training. Especially the part about how such skills can be enough to make a difference in this world. That’s why I’d argue Bruce Wayne’s alter ego paved the way for making MCU founding father Iron Man a breakout character.

All this in mind makes the video game Batman Arkham Knight coming out in 2015 very appropriate. That year was the moment Gen X pop culture influence hit its peak. It’s sad and maddening how its subsequent decline has had dire consequences.

Far too many “alt-right” and “anti-woke” loudmouths flooded the fandom zones in the late 2010s. Quite a few of them went on to become political boosters of the American right-wing. Still, that was never their primary goal. Most of their focus over the last eleven years has been denying and staving off the coming generational handover. An exercise that was doomed from the start.

So what does that have to do with the last major Batman video game (the less said about Gotham Knights the better)? Everything, really. For all the issues with some of the gameplay (looking at you, Batmobile Riddler challenges) the story argues the opposite view. That it’s better to embrace the changes time and age bring. That we all need to prepare for a world without us.

The Long Halloween

Time inevitably marches on. Most superhero stories, in and out of comics, pretend that it won’t. But not this game. You’re given a chance to cremate the deceased Joker (who got killed by his own actions in the first two games) at the start. Nothing quite reminds you of time like a fresh corpse.

Of course, this kind of story has been done before with Batman. Since Frank Miller’s mid-1980s miniseries The Dark Knight Returns, there’s been no shortage of such. It’s just that Arkham Knight comes at it from a unique angle by grounding it in fear. And really...when it comes to getting older, does any other emotion truly apply?

No other Batman villain embodies fear more than Dr. Jonathon Crane AKA Scarecrow. He’d shown up previously in Batman Arkham Asylum as a side villain, a sneak who used his fear gas to turn him into a Freddy Krueger type. But as voiced by John Noble, the Arkham Knight version is a far different animal. He’s a chillingly calm presence, determined to break the one man he could never get the better of. That means more than just killing him. This time, he’s out to destroy the myth of Batman itself.

After the Joker cremation, the player takes control of a beat cop the night before Halloween. He’s going into Pauli’s Diner (a nod to famous Batman The Animated Series writer, Paul Dini) to grab some food. While he’s waiting on his order, he gets called over to deal with a smoker in a corner booth. When he does, everything goes off the rails. The most visceral depiction of a fear gas attack I’ve seen in any Batman media follows.

Hacking into the city’s video feed, Scarecrow gives a little warning on how he’ll set off more of the gas for anyone who’s still here tomorrow. The next thing we see is a mass evacuation of Gotham City. In the words of a monologuing Commissioner Jim Gordon (played with wonderful gravitas by Jonathan Banks)…

Indeed, the only citizens left on the streets are the cops, the criminals...and Batman.

Okay, so far, so typical. Bad guy menaces the city, other bad guys take advantage (including the nastily annoying Riddler and a serial killer) and our hero has to sort it all out. The difference this time lies in the two extra threats Batman has to deal with.

The obvious one comes from a group whose services Scarecrow was smart enough to buy (financed by Batman’s wealthier villains like Penguin and Two-Face). An army of mercenaries are now occupying the city, backed by military grade equipment. Their commander is a mysterious figure calling himself “the Arkham Knight”. His armor is a distorted mirror image of Bruce’s. But there are a couple of big differences: the cowl, which completely covers his face, and the heavy voice distorter. Those make IDing him nearly impossible.

Still, given the personal grudge he bears against Batman, it’s obvious there’s some mutual history involved. Worse still, the Knight knows way too much about Batman’s tactics and other personal details. He ruthlessly uses them against Bruce for the entire night.

The thing is Batman is hardly alone in this fight. He has lots of allies who are willing to aid him...if he’d let them. For reasons that border on the inexplicable, the only people whose help he readily accepts is his tech support (a network that includes ever-faithful Alfred Pennyworth, Wayne Corp CEO Lucius Fox and Barbara Gordon AKA Oracle). Everyone else, he does his best to keep at arm’s length.

We finally find out why when Bats is shutting down a chemical explosion. In the process, he’s exposed himself to a large amount of fear gas. When he’s almost done, a certain murder clown suddenly shows up out of nowhere: “Miss me?”

As explained via flashback, four people got exposed to Joker’s blood via transfusion during the events of Arkham City. They’re each turning into their own version of Joker in a similar manner to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. For their own safety (and that of others), they’re being held in the defunct Panessa Studios while Bats works on a cure.

One thing Bruce doesn’t tell the visiting Jim Gordon is how he has a personal stake in this...he’s been infected too. And lucky him, all that fear gas just set the infection off.

This inner threat hangs over Batman for the rest of the game. It tends to show up in the form of visions and realistic hallucinations. Most involve Joker popping up at random to talk his usual patter (wickedly voiced by Mark Hamill in the voice acting role that gave him a career after Luke Skywalker). Various advertisements across the city sometimes get a Joker-oriented slant. But when the visions get extreme, they wind up impeding Bruce’s ability to see and react clearly.

Joker is killing Batman from beyond the grave. He only has a few hours left before he succumbs.

Legends Of The Dark Knight

One of the best decisions made in the Batman Arkham series was with its voice acting choices. The first game wound up tapping talents from Batman The Animated Series like Hamill as Joker and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. But nowhere was their casting more brilliant than in picking Kevin Conroy for Bruce Wayne/Batman.

There have been plenty of Batman actors over the decades, from Adam West to Christian Bale. But I’d argue that, starting from BTAS, Conroy stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. In every performance he’s given as the character, he shows the one Batman trait that’s usually overlooked: deep compassion. For all of Bruce’s scare tactics, he never forgot what it was to be a victim. To be forced into a situation that is anything but your fault. It’s the driving reason for doing what he does night after night.

Conroy’s performance here gets many chances to show that compassion in action. We see this especially with the Man-Bat, mindlessly flying through the Gotham skies due to an experiment gone wrong. But there’s also an understated tenderness in Bruce’s dealings with his sidekicks, both past (Nightwing, his first Robin) and present (Tim Drake, the current Robin). It also pushes him to make at least two questionable decisions in the interest of keeping them safe.

That tenderness shows up in other places. A final conversation with Jim Gordon about the importance of family sums up their relationship well. The haunting memories of the lost second Robin, Jason Todd, scald Bruce like acid. Even saving his frenemy love interest Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman has undertones of love that will be forever unrequited.

With death staring him in the face, Bruce feels he has to do more than save his city. As much as he would never admit it, he’s come to care about a number of people over the years.

He has to save them too. They’re part of his legacy, one he wants others to build upon.

A Death In The Family

Batman is far from the only character dealing with mortality in this game. A number of his longtime foes are being confronted with it as well. And just like with Bruce, that’s making them face things they never had to before.

The immortal Ra’s Al Ghul arguably has the worst situation. Repeated resurrections have finally hollowed him out, reducing him to a shell of himself. This has led his League of Assassins to a nasty civil war. One side still favors the weakened patriarch, the other wanting new leadership.

Though Mr Freeze makes a return to Gotham, he refuses to be part of Scarecrow’s plan. As usual, the bad guys take his beloved, cryogenically-frozen wife Nora as a bargaining chip. But this time, something goes wrong. Something that makes her finally have to wake up. Her being conscious for the first time in a decade forces Freeze to reckon long-delayed consequences.

And then there’s another Batman villain who makes the ultimate sacrifice. One that saves Gotham at the cost of their own life...and that is all I will say on the matter.

The point is death is no longer a distant event for any of them. It’s right here, right now. The only true choice left is to face it.

Buy Me A Tea?

The Killing Joke

Oddly enough, being faced with mortality also applies to the Joker in Batman’s psyche. Thanks to the events of the story, he finally does break free. But it turns out to be anything but a total victory. For the first time, Joker is confronted with something he has never dealt with before: irrelevance.

At first, he’s having the time of his life, getting back at all the other villains who ever got on his nerves, blowing up the city. But then the lights go out and he winds up down dark corridors that start to unnerve him. Bit by bit, Joker is brought face-to-face with a world that has moved on without him. All the death, destruction and mayhem he caused in life...without him around, it’s all easily forgotten. And who truly wants to remember any of that anyway?

Hamill’s performance in this segment is truly remarkable. It starts off being the Joker’s as his usual viciously playful self. And then by degrees, it gets more angry, hysterical, defensive. It finally culminates in a fitting end that leaves him broken for good in Bruce’s mind.

This, more than any other part of the game, has the most parallels with the worst of Gen X fans. Neither they nor he can imagine a world without them in it. When confronted with such a world, both fight to stop it from happening. The end result is all but guaranteed...and the only ones who don’t see it coming is them.

Joker may have been the Clown Prince Of Crime. But all crowns must eventually yield to time itself.

Knight’s End

Even after eleven years, dear Guests, I have yet to figure the ending out. All I can say for sure? Scarecrow both succeeds and fails in his aim to destroy Batman. And a new legend winds up popping up in his wake.

But maybe that continuing mystery was the point. This story is over. It’s a new era and so time for a new story. That’s only possible when you finally let go of the tale that came before.

On the cusp of Millennial/Gen Z pop culture taking over at last, it’s a lesson my fellow Gen Xers could stand to learn. Batman Arkham Knight is a fitting, final tribute to Conroy, Batman and the Gen X fandom that made this moment even possible. But only if we understand that it’s time for us older fans to step aside.

Buy Me A Tea?

By now, dear Guests, it’s sunk in with fan culture how truly problematic Howard Phillip Lovecraft was as a writer. For all the grand, groundbreaking cosmic ideas, he had a serious racism problem. Mostly it stemmed from fear of nearly everything. As Nilanjana Roy once rightly pointed out in her 2006 essay, “Lovecraft’s Phobias” (https://nilanjanaroy.com/2006/10/29/lovecrafts-phobias/)…

Mind, it still doesn’t excuse horrid literature like the essay “Crime Of The Century”, the NYC-hating “Horror Of Red Hook” or the anti-miscegenation short story “Medusa’s Coil”. But it’s all the more reason to be glad other creators like John Carpenter, Poppy Z Brite, the late Stuart Gordon and Guillermo Del Toro (among many, many others) took his concepts and made them their own.

It’s a tradition that can be traced back to the 1970s. That was when August Derleth’s constant reissuing Lovecraft’s work through Arkham House finally bore fruit. On the silver screen, Roger Corman did the first unofficial Lovecraft adaptation with 1963’s The Haunted Palace (yes, dear Guests, that title and the name of this column are hardly a coincidence). But he also produced the first official adaptation with 1972’s The Dunwich Horror, directed by his protege Daniel Haller and partly written by Curtis Hanson of late L.A. Confidential fame.

But the adaptations we’ll be looking at tonight? They’ll be from the TV screen. Specifically from the macabre anthology Night Gallery. The two segments we’ll be looking at put their own unique spin on Lovecraft by reimagining them as Gothic Romances.

That’s the first genre you think about when it comes to Lovecraft, right? Yeah, me neither.

Nevertheless, Gothic Romance was a very popular paperback genre during this decade. Per the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/18/archives/gothic-novels-for-women-prove-bonanza-for-publishers-an-element-of.html), it accounted for 21% of all 1972 paperbacks sold via the Chas. Levy Circulating Company. Couple that with the popularity of then-contemporary Dark Shadows and its own tie-in novels, it would follow a series like Night Gallery would try its own hand at such.

Yes, Howard Lovecraft never have made a story like this. But I’m rather glad somebody did.

Model Artist

Before we begin, I should mention something, dear Guests.

Each Night Gallery story starts with a painting (which Stephen King put down as “mostly ridiculous” in his horror overview Danse Macabre but are all quite good). The art sets the mood for the story that follows, giving the viewers expectations of what is to come. Given that “Pickman’s Model” deals with specifically with art, leading off with a painting makes so much sense. Have a look...

We start in an old loft in then-present-day Boston. The new renter, one Eliot Blackman (played by Joshua Bryant) is showing his art critic friend Larry Rand the painting above. Rand admits that it seems like the work of Richard Upton Pickman, right down to its signature. When asked where he found it, Blackman say it was in a storage space when he moved in.

Between the two of them, they deduce that this loft was once Pickman’s hidden art studio. Rand fills in a few more details on Pickman: his lifelong poverty, his wearing gloves at all times and his mysterious disappearance. Both he and Blackman ponder how this particular painting got here...

From there, we cut back to turn of the 20th Century. We see Pickman (played by Bradford Dillman) teaching young ladies how to paint, the only way he ever made any real money. He uses the starting painting as an example on how to paint what you see. Still, the actual subject for the class is the standard vase of flowers. One student, Mavis Goldsmith (played with sweet-summer-child innocence by Louise Sorel) actually has withered flowers drawn, overlooked by a rough sketch of Pickman’s face.

Not because she hates Pickman, mind. In fact, after her teacher is informed he’s been dismissed from his position, we see she really, really likes him. She even goes out of her way to track him down at a tea shop. Sadly, the affection is not reciprocated. After confessing her love to him, he tells her it’s a poor choice. He’s so caught up in rebuffing her advances, he leaves our featured painting behind in the process.

Mavis winds up talking to her Uncle George about where Pickman could be. Using a street painting she bought from her would-be artist lover as a guide, George deduces that his studio is on the North End. Being the responsible adult he is, he warns Mavis how rough an area the North End is. That does nothing to dissuade her from going to the loft to return the painting Pickman left with her. It’s a choice she winds up regretting intensely...

Now, I could talk about the basic faithfulness to Lovecraft’s original story, right down to the other paintings on display in Pickman’s studio. How the title model is really a combo of a Deep One and a ghoul from Lovecraft story lore. How the rubber monster suit is very unconvincing even by 1970s standards. Or how our two leads from the present do something at the end which makes Mavis’ actions look carefully considered.

But none of those details really stay with me. What does? Mavis’ toxic attachment.

Pickman is no good for her...at all. It’s to his credit he tells her this upfront. Despite that, she refuses to believe it’s true. She’s so convinced that if she can just break through his shell, he’ll return her love. Even leaving out the monster angle, it’s a very common mistake. It takes what she finds at the loft to finally understand why he was right.

Alvin Sapinsley’s script points to a depressing truth. Unless both parties actually are willing, such a one-sided love must go unrequited. The horrors Pickman lives among only made that conclusion more obvious.

Roses On Your Grave

This next picture is a bit less fantastical. But I promise this, dear Guests. It’s a perfect match for “Cool Air”, which was penned by Rod Serling himself...

Once again, we start in the then-present-day of 1973. As we walk through a cemetery, we hear the melancholy strains of a Spanish guitar (beautiful played by Robert Bain). In a voiceover, an elderly woman talks about a grave she visits once a year. About a love she had fifty years ago. When we get close to said grave, it’s mostly covered by leaves. But we can see the deceased’s name: Dr. Juan Munoz. The woman talks about how his face and voice get cloudy in her memory. But she always remembers the cool air. And the thought of it fills her with horror...

As she says this, we see the scene cut back to 1923 New York City. Our narrator, Agatha Howard, (played by Barbara Rush) gets out of a cab to go to an apartment building on a hot summer day. When she’s met by the landlady, she explains she’s here to meet a colleague of her late father from MIT.

Munoz (played with great restraint and gentility by Henry Darrow) invites Agatha in while giving his landlady a snide rebuff on the matter of female visitors. The three rooms he occupies is dominated by an enormous air conditioner, fueled by ammonia (whose stink the landlady complains about).

It turns out Agatha’s father corresponded regularly with Munoz. Their letters dealt with a refusal to accept death as the end. Munoz admits to feeling strongly about the subject. He has little to no faith in a hereafter. So this life should be maintained as long as possible. Becoming ill many years ago and subsequently losing his wife to suicide has only hardened that conviction. Holding onto his life now requires the oversized air conditioner. If the temperature should ever go above 55 degrees Fahrenheit, he will suffer.

In the course of the conversation, Agatha becomes quite taken with him. Enough so that she starts making regular visits to his place. When she’s around, he freely talks about a variety of subjects...save one. Details about his past, specifically his late wife and the nature of his illness, are never brought up.

But events take a harsh turn when a great thunderstorm knocks out power in the building. It proves to be the catalyst for Agatha discovering the truth about Juan’s condition…

This story couldn’t be more different from our previous one. While “Pickman’s Model” was a cautionary tale, “Cool Air” is just straight-up tragedy. Our star-crossed lovers are destined to torn apart for reasons that were there from the beginning. The original story didn’t have much plot to it (though it did a racist stereotype or two). Serling adding a romantic backbone gives the episode structure, complete with an epilogue at the graveyard. If Juan Munoz embodies anything about Lovecraft, it would be the strict materialist view of life. A mechanical outlook that is doomed to perish in the face of life’s harsh realities.

The real tragedy? Agatha managed to awaken the cold, dead parts of Juan’s heart. But it was far too late for them to do more with it.

Loving Your Craft

Even without the racism, Lovecraft is a notoriously hard author to adapt. Too many filmmakers, in the words of Robert Bloch when talking about Derleth’s Lovecraftian efforts, “sound the notes but lose the music.” Look no further than the HPL adaptations in Cabinet of Curiosities (“Pickman’s Model” again and “Dreams Of The Witch House) for proof.

But these Night Gallery entries give a blueprint on how to do such adaptations justice. How to take those notes of cosmic horror and weave them into a rhythm and melody both unique and respectful to the source. All future Lovecraft filmmakers could stand to learn from them.

That concludes our visit to the Gallery this evening, dear Guests. But be assured that Night Gallery is rather like Agatha Howard’s cemetery. It doesn’t matter when we leave. We know we’ll be coming back sometime. Until we do...do have a good evening.

MAJOR spoilers for “Come Wander With Me”, more mild ones for “The Jeopardy Room”

Let us begin with a confession, dear Guests Of The Palace. I think the role of film directors is vastly overrated with a few exceptions. Auteur theory has done so much damage to the role of other people in film productions (especially writers). So when I like a director enough to highlight them? That means something.

So it is with tonight’s subject, Richard Donner. You may not realize he was one of the most influential late 20th Century genre figures. The 1970s saw him directing 1976’s The Omen and then, in a total 180, 1978’s Superman. Then in the 1980s, he was directing all four Lethal Weapon films. The 1990s had him (with wife Mary Schuler Donner) producing the X-Men films, where he took under his wing a visionary assistant named Kevin Feige (future producer of the MCU, FYI).

Still, the greatest creatives have to start somewhere. And what better place to cut your teeth than on the fifth and final season of the OG Twilight Zone? That’s where Donner got his start as director. The most famous of these episodes is the classic “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet”, having a paranoid William Shatner face off against a gremlin. Donner even did a brief gag referencing that in Superman.

But my two favorites from him are lesser-known (hardly a shock, eh, Guests?). Both episodes benefit from being as well-written as “Nightmare”. Both are also unusual scenarios even by Twilight Zone standards.

So...allow me to make some proper introductions...

Photo by Nathan DeFiesta on Unsplash

Killer Tune

Any song or story, if it is to survive, has to have something that reaches across generations. It’s why Shakespeare reworked old stories and legends for his plays. Why Bryan Cranston’s reading of Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias” packs a serious punch. Why Khemmis found the dark heart of the folk song “O Death” in their take, “A Conversation With Death”.

That last one is probably the best example to keep in mind. Once a piece of art takes on a life of its own, what do it do with that life? And how does that affect other people? Those questions lie at the heart of our first piece, “Come Wander With Me”.

A quick but amazing side note: this was not written by Rod Serling or any of his regular writers. The credit goes to Anthony Wilson, who later worked with Serling on the original Planet Of The Apes.

Ah, but we’re wasting time. Onward...

We open with a fancy convertible stopping on a wrecked bridge in the middle of nowhere. When the driver’s side door opens, it announces this car is the property of Floyd Burney, “The Rockabilly Kid”. It even has three of his hit songs emblazoned there. Just in case his douchebag credentials haven’t been properly established, Floyd (played by Gary Crosby...yes, Bing’s son) pulls out an overdecorated guitar that has his name on the back. He’s also got a portable tape recorder with him.

He makes a short hike down to a backwoods music shop in a barn. After some searching, he finds the owner. Talking a mile a minute, Floyd explains to the shop owner why he’s here:

Floyd is a total asshole about it, though. He’s so self-absorbed that he doesn’t notice how little the owner is saying back. Or the dead-eyed stare he keeps giving Floyd. Or how the “no” Floyd keeps getting as an answer just hangs there.

Then Floyd hears a woman humming outside, accompanied by a strumming guitar. A tune so lovely, he has to go after it. He’s so focused on the sound, he completely misses the first sign of how this is going to end…

Mr. Serling puts it like this in his opening monologue:

As Floyd goes deeper into the woods, the viewer is made to feel less and less easy. Donner’s direction truly shines through this sequence. The camera is placed at all sorts of odd angles, even a bird’s POV at one point. And there’s fleeting glimpses of a woman all wrapped in widow’s weeds that Floyd completely misses.

He finally finds the source of the music...or rather the source finds him. Naturally, Floyd’s first question to Mary-Rachel (played with soft-spoken sincerity by Bonnie Beecher) is about the song. She tells of how it’s supposed to be a secret and how the Rayford Brothers made her stop singing it.

But clueless Floyd keeps prodding her to share. He even hands her a guitar he grabbed from the shop for her to play. Finally she sings the first chorus:

It is a haunting ballad that rightly captures Floyd’s heart. Mary-Rachel tries to go away afterwards. But Floyd wants her to stick around and share the rest. He finally wins her over with a promise to take her away. After giving her a kiss, the camera wanders off. We can hear Mary-Rachel singing more of the song.

That’s also when we get a better look at the woman in black. Seem familiar?

Floyd goes over the song with Mary-Rachel well into the dusk. After a quick playback of some ominous lyrics, one of the Rayford brothers finds them. Suffice to say, things go downhill from there…

There’s a chaos magic concept called a hyper-sigil. To wit, it’s when a piece of art embeds so hard on the collective psyche, it starts affecting physical reality. The final ten minutes of this episode is watching that principle in action. Floyd keeps making all the wrong moves, which lead him straight to a very ugly end.

The tragedy, dear Guests? Over and over, Mary-Rachel keeps telling Floyd to do something different this time. That raises a couple of questions: a) how many times did he go through this already and b) did he ever have it in him to do it different?

Serling’s closing monologue makes a good summary of the situation:

It’s No Game

Our next episode starts with a man (played by Martin Landau) awoken from a dead sleep by the telephone. Look at the panic in his eyes. It tells you how he fears the worst.

That gets confirmed when he answers. A jovial voice on the other end asks if this is Major Kuchenko. Kuchenko naturally asks who this is. All the voice says is that he is “a good friend”, one who will be making contact with him very soon. But for the time being, it would be best if Kuchenko stayed in his hotel room.

In a remarkable shot for TV of this era, the camera pulls back to reveal our caller (played with bon vivant amusement by John van Dreelan) and his sniper henchman (played by Robert Kelljan) watching from the building across the street. The sniper, called Boris, wants Kuchenko iced on the spot. But his superior, whom Boris calls “Commissar”, waves him off. That would be killing like a butcher, which he finds distasteful. No, the Major will die tonight. But the Commissar wants to do it “right”:

So begins “The Jeopardy Room”, a Rod Serling script that is totally out of step with this series. As you will see, Guests, it is a great episode. But it’s more of a story puzzle than the usual philosophy trip. I think it got lost on the way to a spy movie production.

Our smug Commissar shows up at the Major’s door a little while later. Kuchenko covers him with a gun after letting him in. They verbally spar for a bit. It’s revealed that Kuchenko spent twelve years in prison before fleeing the Motherland. He even calls Siberia “a freezing jungle” he was glad to escape (a description the Commissar likes a lot).

Kuchenko then reveals he knows who the Commissar is:

The Commissar then explains how the Major has knowledge of certain operations. Even after twelve years, they’re coming out would be very embarrassing. Seeing as the Commissar has a kill count of eight hundred, he likes his chances on taking care of Kuchenko.

But first, the Commissar proposes a social drink. Even imbibes it himself to show that it’s not poisoned. Unfortunately, a few moments after the Major takes a swig, he falls down to the floor.

To his surprise, Kuchenko comes to a little later. His gun and guest are gone but there’s a tape recording left behind. It calmly explains that a) the Commissar is quite immune to the knockout drug due to long exposure and b) there’s a bomb planted in the room. It’s been bobby-trapped to a common object in the room.

The Major has three hours to find it. If he turns off the lights, refuses to search or tries to run out, he’ll be shot. A glimpse across the street reveals Boris watching from the opposite window.

To say more would be to spoil too much. I will say that Donner’s direction once again take center stage during this final act. Landau’s performance is a perfect compliment to it, showing raw nerves, breathless desperation and even a few moments of loud, poignant despair. Both find a good mirror in the moody score. Jerry Goldsmith and Fred Steiner’s musical cues hover like vultures over a future corpse.

However…I will say one thing, dear Guests. The final shot of this episode is easily one of the most brutal ones ever put on 1960s television.

Care To Buy Me Some Tea?

Donner, Party Of One

All great artists have to start somewhere. Toil away in mediums and fields where they often struggle to stand out. But some of those early works can stand head-and-shoulders with the better-known pieces. Becoming rare gems in their own right.

So it is with these Richard Donner contributions to the 5th Dimension. Liked watching William Shatner freak out? Just wait till you see these…

**FYI, you can do just that for free on PlutoTV and Tubi as of this writing.**

If you ask who the 20^th Century’s last great action director was? Chances are John Woo is going to come up.

To be sure, he had an impressive run of 1990s Hong Kong action films. Mention A Better Tomorrow (the first or second), The Killer or Hard-Boiled to those in the know and you’ll likely get instant recognition. All of them are balletic but brutal action movies, full of incredible choreography mixed with unflinching violence.

That last one incorporates something usually missing in American action films: consequences. There are no isolated incidents in these films. Every action the characters make has a cascade effect that hits everybody around them. Small wonder why Woo eventually made his way to Hollywood in 1993.

Alas, his time there proved to be less fruitful. Like so many other foreign directors, he ran afoul of studio management in terms of acceptable violence and completion schedules. Mind, he did make a few notable films during this period: Hard Target, Face/Off, and Windtalkers among others. But none of them achieved the legendary status of his earlier work and are now largely forgotten.

That includes tonight’s subject, dear Guests, 2003’s Paycheck, the film that finished Woo’s Hollywood dream. On paper, it should have been a success: excellent cast of past and future stars, a tight, cracking script from Dean Georgaris, source material from a Phillip K Dick story. Yet it was relegated to a Christmas release (the time slot Hollywood dumps its failures) and was unjustly maligned as a ripoff of 2002’s Minority Report (which was also based on a Phillip K Dick story).

As good as Minority Report was, it was too much a product of the 2000s to still be relevant. By contrast, Paycheck proved to be far more ahead of its time. Its subtext aims critiques at gig culture, techbro mentalities and the unthinking pursuit of profit that infects both. A trio of characters are the key to understanding all this properly.

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The tone of the film is set up with its very first line:

“It’s time to wake up...and get a life.”

Mind, this proves to be part of a cheesy sales pitch for a three-dimensional monitor called A-Life. Still, that line’s significance applies to our hero, Michael Jennings (as played by a post-Kevin Smith Ben Affleck). He makes his living as a reverse engineer for hire, taking another company’s products to improve upon them for the competition. His method in doing so involves breaking them down to their core principles—“working backwards” as he calls it—before building back a better model.

(A related aside, fellow Gen Xers: that’s the whole point of deconstructing stories too. You make something that’s an improvement or you’re just leaving narrative rubble all over the place. Remember that! Ahem...)

When Jennings gets done with the work, his memory of the time spent doing it gets erased. This usually involves a fairly dangerous procedure that microwaves the dendrites in his brain. He guards against this regular assault on his health with martial arts training. Because he is well-paid, he constantly tells himself how he has a good life.

Yet when we get to his apartment after his latest job, we see how cold and empty it is. It’s less of a home and more of a place where he occasionally sleeps. His talk with his sidekick and personal manager Shorty (played by the ever delightful and wry Paul Giamatti) gives the viewer the sense of how little time he spends here. He’s too busy learning to dive, doing stadium tours, anything to distract from how little of a life he has. He even manages to miss out on the World Series with his beloved Boston Red Sox.

It’s a loneliness that the most prosperous gig workers can relate to. The job becomes your life. When the job’s over, you’re never sure what to do with yourself.

So really, Jennings is just a phantom. A temp employee who doesn’t officially exist and has even less presence as a human being. None of the perks he has makes up for how he’s just maintaining an existence. One that is about to get broken up by an unlikely source.

The Man Who Has Everything

Our story really begins with an invitation from one of Michael’s few friends, James Rethrick (played by a pre-Dark Knight Aaron Eckhart). Founder and CEO of Allcom, he was a friend of Michael’s in school but far more successful. That much is obvious from his mansion, complete with an in-house AI named Issac (please note this was years before Alexa became a thing).

And yet, despite how Rethrick has climbed to the top, he wants to aim higher. Hence why he makes Michael a major job offer: trade two to three years of his life in exchange for one eight-figure paycheck with stock options.

Michael balks at first. The longest a memory wipe can be done by the usual method is eight weeks. But Rethrick counters with a question: if there was a way, would Michael do it? Ultimately Michael agrees and he’s off to the Allcom campus by helicopter.

In these initial scenes, Rethrick is charming and friendly, if a bit pushy. He comes off as a visionary on the order of Steve Jobs. Still, there’s little hints as to his real character if you look hard enough.

The one a viewer is likely to miss? Spoiling the end of the World Series for Michael. Now, as a gag, that’s pretty funny. So much, it’s easy to overlook the larger implication. Jimmy told him Michael that to make sure he didn’t have an excuse to miss his party. That’s a bit rude. One might even say controlling. It tells you how Jimmy values his wants and needs over others.

But the true mask-off moment comes when Michael goes home after the job. He’s already pissed because apparently he gave up all the money before the memory wipe (this one done by chemicals). Far stranger is that he now has only a mysterious packet of twenty everyday items to show for it (more on those in a bit). Then his day gets way worse when he’s taken in by the FBI.

He’s subsequently grilled by a pair of agents (played by genre veteran Joe Morton and a pre-Dexter Michael C Hall) on why he’s selling government secrets. Thanks to his chemically-induced amnesia, Michael now has no way to prove his innocence. Jimmy has clearly set him up to be the fall guy.

But then, with the aid of those mystery items, Michael manages to bust out of the FBI offices and make an escape. That leaves a coldly furious Rethrick grilling his chief henchman John Wolfe (played by Colm Feore) on what went wrong. Everything else that had been predicted by the machine Michael built happened on schedule. So why didn’t Michael’s death?

Let’s take a beat here. Jimmy Rethrick is supposedly Michael’s friend. And yet he’s treating Michael like malware that needs to be erased. Whatever Rethrick’s humble origins (Michael mentions how Allcom was started out of Jimmy’s garage), he has fully embraced the techbro ethos. Only the future matters. Anyone or anything that gets in the way is to be removed with extreme prejudice.

In an interview, Eckhart speculated that Rethrick has just become a disciple of the machine, unable to think beyond what he saw in it. We’ll go into that myopia more in a minute. But we have one last major player to talk about.

I'd Love A Cup Of Tea

The Woman Who Remembered

Among the many things Michael forgot from his last three years was his whole relationship with one Dr. Rachel Porter (played by a post-Pulp Fiction Uma Thurman), a plant biologist working for Allcom. They actually meet at Jimmy’s party, where he immediately tries to hit on her. Unlike quite a few movie love interests, Rachel rebuffs him for being too rude. After accepting the mistake with grace (also unusual for an action film hero), they part ways.

They meet again at the Allcom campus, where she’s working on hydroponics. In a delightful scene, she gives Michael a crash course on how the system’s internal weather works via remote control. The amount of snark and playfulness she gives out shows how much she is her own woman.

Despite their closeness, Michael leaves her completely in the dark on his post-memory-wipe plans. Still, he does reach out to her in a lovely poetic fashion and she proves to be the other disruptive factor in Jimmy’s plans.

If there is any one aspect of this film can be called innovative, it’s Rachel. She’s smart, tough-minded and fiercely committed to Michael. If anything, she winds up saving him more times than the other way around. She has a talent for improvisation that makes her a formidable opponent. Every time he tries to push her away, she basically ignores him before telling him how she’s going to help.

Even so, she’s arguably the one who gets the most hurt by Rethrick’s games. Michael losing the last three years means essentially losing their relationship with it. When she cries as she hugs him, you can see that she truly mourns that. Even starting everything from scratch can’t totally kill that pain.

The Machine That Promised

Time to finally speak of the tech at the heart of this film. It uses powerful lasers and advanced quantum physics to look into the future (hence the comparisons to Minority Report). How far ahead is never specified. But the available evidence suggests months or even years. The kind of foresight that makes it as much a prize for the US government as it does Rethrick.

Michael and Jimmy couldn’t be more different in their reactions to it. Jimmy sees something that will let him own the future outright. As long as he follows the machine’s lead, he need never worry about anything again. But Michael sees a future that costs everyone. So he’s not just engineering his own escape. He’s trying to engineer the world’s continuing safety.

In fact, he’s set up things so well, Rethrick consistently stays two steps behind. Jimmy leans totally on the predictions and he’s doubly pissed to find Michael sabotaged the machine on his way out. Worse still, it only comes back online when Michael is ready for it to.

The contrast in approaches gets more pronounced as the film goes on. Save for one halfway decent con at the midpoint, Rethrick is unable to think outside the box, his thinking as binary as the machine’s programming. Raw power is his only true asset...and it’s not enough.

Despite his prep, Jennings fumbles around most of the time. But at the right time and place, each of his innocuous items prove to be surprisingly effective. What he lacks in knowledge, he substitutes with imagination and a little applied engineering. He bends like a willow to the circumstances he’s in, wiggling his way out of jams until he’s safe.

It’s really Rethrick’s rigid POV that defeats him. For all Michael’s innovative strategy, none of it would mean a thing without Jimmy’s inability to adapt.

The Film Time Forgot

Paycheck thankfully did little to slow the careers of everyone involved. Affleck would become respected as an actor and director by the start of the 2010s. Thurman reteamed with Quentin Tarantino for a legendary role in Kill Bill. Despite the severe injuries she incurred during shooting, she continues to act to this day, starring in the upcoming Pretty Lethal for Amazon. As mentioned, Aaron Eckhart turned in his career-defining performance as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight a few years later. And after a 2010s stint in Hong Kong, John Woo made a return to Hollywood with 2023’s Silent Night.

All well and good but…dammit, Paycheck deserves to be better remembered. It’s aged better than too many of its contemporaries. If it were released now, it’d probably be an instant classic. So you should really see (or is that foresee?) it for yourself, dear Guests. This is one check you should cash.

Anytime Is Tea Time

For the most part, the original Mission: Impossible series is honestly a fun but strange show. Yes, the title and Lalo Schfrin’s opening score have become iconic. But outside of Peter Graves’ mastermind Jim Phelps, none of its regular characters have. Leonard Nimoy, who was in Seasons 4 and 5 as “Paris The Great”, once mentioned how the Impossible Mission Force were basically “non-characters”. They’re more plot devices to move the story along rather than characters with any kind of inner life. This makes the chief conceit of every episode setting up an elaborate story puzzle that the writers can guide the audience through.

That blank slate nature was likely attractive enough for Tom Cruise to hijack the IP in the late 1990s. Makes me wonder if anyone is going to remember him and his IMF crew any better...

Ah, but that is a separate discussion, dear Guests. Tonight, we are going to speak of an episode that hits a little harder than usual. Since we’ve established our leads as non-entities, that force comes from the people they are after. Which is why we are going to look at “The Echo Of Yesterday”.

The Briefing

Every assignment Jim Phelps is handed happens somewhere mundane. This particular one starts with a parked station wagon. Once he unlocks it, he gets an 8-track tape and an envelope of photos out of the glove box.

Per the tape voice (provided by a never-credited Robert Johnson), the first photo is of Colonel Markus Von Frank (played by Eric Braeden), who is slowly growing his Neo-Nazis’ political power in West Germany. Phelps’ superiors see him as a potential new Hitler. Given how he has gained the support of weapons industrialist Otto Kelmann (played by Wilfrid Hyde-White), that fear is more than justified.

“Your mission, should you decide to accept it,” the voice goes on (when did Phelps ever say no?) “is to stop Von Frank and Kelmann.” After the usual disclaimers on getting caught or killed and the self-destruct, Phelps assembles his team and we go to their planning.

But let’s skip all that. We need to get to the important parts, namely our two targets.

Care To Buy Me a Tea?

Target 1: The Romantic Fascist

As Phelps says during the planning, Herr Kelmann (a likely stand-in for Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, at a guess) is a genteel, retiring gentleman. He is the last of a family line of weapons manufacturers, going back three generations. Long ago, he had a wife, who was passionate about photography. She died in 1932 under circumstances that involved one Adolf Hitler.

While Kelmann helped cover up what actually happened, something must have broke in him. He’s become reclusive to the point of shunning publicity. The highlight of his day is going to the park to be alone at the same bench.

That’s where team member Cinnamon Carter (played by the cool beauty Barbara Bains) finds him. She uses subtle cues to remind him of his late wife, dressing up in old-fashioned clothes while posing as a photography student. Quick sepia flashes clue the viewer into how memories Kelmann has buried are being stirred.

A few preplanned contrivances later, he’s taking her back to her apartment. He looks over her work (getting a few more memory flashes) while Cinnamon makes like the telephone is a source of terror. This well-executed social engineering is enough to get Kelmann to invite her back to his house for dinner.

The audience might be tempted to think Kelmann doesn’t deserve what’s about to happen to him. Around Cinnamon, he’s conscientious, chivalrous and very generous with his time and resources. You can also tell she’s doing a lot to help his unstated loneliness.

But the mask slips off at dinner. That’s when he talks about how Nazism is just misunderstood. How the “gangsters and psychopaths” that were its most famous practitioners ruined the name of something that was good, actually.

All sympathy should rightly stop at this point. Kelmann lost his wife to the people he’s defending. He saw his country literally shattered in two by a war that political party started. And he still wants to make excuses? Is he truly that blind?

Still, when it comes to fascism, such self-serving lies are hardly unique. Every time that system produces monsters beyond public rehabilitation, its truest believers always say they’re a bug instead of a feature. But as we will see in our next profile, that’s anything but the truth.

Target 2: The Violent Paranoid

Markus Von Frank is certainly the more obvious threat. The dueling scar on his right cheek makes that obvious enough. But like his patron, he too has a few layers to uncover.

On the surface, he is a patient, urbane predator. He carries an aura of menace around like a cloak, further emphasized by his clipped, controlled words. His eyes always look at people the way a scientist looks at a specimen. The implied calculation: “What can you do for me?” While he claims friendship with Herr Kelmann, it feels feigned. You get the impression once Kelmann signs over his factory and wealth next Monday, Von Frank will arrange an “accident” through his inside man Karl (played by Richard Morrison).

He is open to making new allies, as demonstrated Phelps posing as an American Nazi seeking his official approval. But such people must be prepared to obey him and show unshakable courage, which is why he makes Phelps do a fencing duel. The implication is he gets the closest thing he can feel to joy from commanding such “inferiors”.

All this makes him come off as someone who can play the long game and win. But there is one ugly twitch to his psychology: his barely-restrained paranoia. It’s unlikely he even sees it as a weakness. He already imagines he’s constantly surrounded by many enemies. That requires he be hyper-aware at all times. He does relax with his patron Kelmann and people he considers subordinates. But they must never deviate from his expectations in any way. And outsiders start with a strike against them in his eyes. So if either group does anything suspicious, the other two strikes can come fairly fast.

Combine this with a volcanic temper and Von Frank’s always primed to blow. Give him Herr Kelmann’s resources and, succeed or fail, he’ll cause a great deal of harm trying to create that Fourth Reich.

If Kelmann is the explosive, Von Frank is the detonator. How best to defuse them?

Seriously, I'd Love A Tea!

The Plan

As with all IMF plans, the trick is to have the targets do most of the work. As mentioned, Cinnamon uses lots of cues to remind Kelmann of his wife. Once Phelps has gained Von Frank’s trust, he starts playing to the latter’s vanity and suspicions. With the skill of an Iago, Phelps uses Cinnamon’s presense to goad Von Frank into seeing her as a threat.

While Phelps “helps” his target find “proof”, the rest of the team stages a recreation of how Kelmann lost his beloved spouse. This is aided by Rollin Hand (played by the legendary Martin Landau) doing a manically convincing Hitler impersonation. After that, the wheels are set in motion for both men to take themselves out of play.

It’d be tragic if their goals were less horrible. What happens to them is the fall of their beloved Third Reich in miniature. Yes, external enemies opposed the Nazis with all their might. But the constant outward focus made them ignore their own internal rot.

Neither Kelmann nor Von Frank truly learned from the past. They idolized it, revered it. And so it was inevitable that they would repeat it...right down to engineering their own defeat.

Mission Accomplished

The trope of the Nazis making a comeback was used in several Mission: Impossible episodes. But “The Echo Of Yesterday” is the only one that went for the jugular. It argues that no matter the time period, Nazis are horrible people. How they treat themselves is ultimately no better than how they treated others.

When the audience reaches the end of this story puzzle, there is no clean resolution. Just a sickening feeling on how terrible cycles keep repeating without honest reflection. How horrors can rise once more in new but familiar guises. And how repressed sins never stay buried forever.

“When will they ever learn?” goes the Pete Seeger song lyric. With fascists of any kind, the answer is always the same…

NEVER.

Photo by Mr Xerty on Unsplash

I Could Really Use A Tea...

“Anger and hatred are the materials from which hell is made.” --Nhat Hanh

*Medium spoilers for Vampire Circus ahead**

**Trigger warning for child murder and defilement**

It’s hard to overstate how important Hammer Film Productions was to the post-WWII British film industry. There was no sign that’s what it’d become when founded by William Hinds and Enrique Carreras in 1934. They were a very minor B-movie studio that specialized in so-called “quota quickies” by the late 1940s. They even went through a round of bankruptcy three years after its founding.

Yet their full-color gambles on Frankenstein and Dracula paved the way for a slew of similar Gothic horrors. Their unique mix of color, gore and sex quickly became their signature. While critics balked at these films, audiences kept showing up. By the late 1960s, Hammer had become UK film’s central load-bearing beam , much like Marvel Studios was for Hollywood during the 2010s.

However, the noble rot started to set in during the 1970s. There were a number of factors why. First, American films like The Wild Bunch, Bonnie and Clyde and Night Of The Living Dead began to outdo Hammer in the gore department. Hammer production mainstay Anthony Hinds (William’s son) resigned in 1969, retiring from the industry. But an even bigger factor? Hammer’s American distributor Seven Arts being bought out by Warner Bros, also in 1969. The change in management put a serious crimp on Hammer’s film budgets, which were never big in the first place. Quality begin to suffer as a result, even as the blood and nudity got ramped up.

Still, this new, hostile environment did encourage experimentation on Hammer’s part. While by no means are all of the films from this period gems, a few of them are remarkable enough to be remembered. Which brings us, dear Guests, to tonight’s subject, 1972’s Vampire Circus.

First Rites

Our opening scene would probably be the closing one in any other film. A young girl is playing in the woods by herself. A man in a brown suit (played by Laurence Payne) is sitting on a stump nearby, alternating between reading and watching her. Given how we later find out he’s the local schoolmaster Albert Muller, both of these actions make sense.

A young woman comes out of the woods to start playing with the girl. The man doesn’t figure out the woman is luring his young charge away until it’s far too late. But he knows who this woman is, even calling her by name as castle doors shut in his face: “Anna!”

Anna and the girl wind up in the bedroom of Count Mitterhaus (played with decadent glam by Robert Tayman). After the Count suddenly materializes from thin air, he strokes the girl tenderly. For some reason, that’s getting Anna all hot and bothered. It brings her to a full-on climax as the Count bares his fangs to drain the girl dry. Just in case the audience shouldn’t despise this pair enough, Mitterhaus and Anna get it on right after.

By then, Albert has rallied at least a few of the villagers to storm the castle. The poor dead girl was far from the first child from Stetl to fall under the Count’s fangs. Once they break in, they fight a very lopsided battle with Mitterhaus, who kills three of them without breaking a sweat. It’s up to Muller (whom Mitterhaus mocks as “Schoolmaster” and for being a cuckold husband to Anna) to finally put the stake in his heart. The Count uses the last of his strength to lay a final curse: all them will die and so will their children.

The villagers proceed to burn down the castle with Anna in it. She has enough time to drag Mitterhaus’ corpse into the crypts below. A bit of blood she got from a beating revives Mitterhaus enough to give her final instructions. After that, she flees ahead of the flames.

So, by rights, that should be the end. Except it’s the beginning.

Haunted Melody

Fifteen years later, Stetl is in the grip of a mysterious plague. One that’s gotten so bad, there’s a permanent armed blockade around the place. Anyone who tries escape or go in, they get shot on sight.

The Burgomeister and village elders are at their wit’s end on what to do. Many of them lay blame on the Count’s final curse for all this. The newly arrived Dr. Kersh scoffs at their talk, saying it’s the result of a disease he has yet to figure. One he’s going to have to somehow go to the capital to get a handle on.

Barrel organ music begins to come from outside. Out on the main street, a dwarf (played by Skip Martin) is running ahead of a caravan of wagons while a barechested strongman (played by a pre-Darth Vader David Prowse) turns the crank on the organ. At the top of his lungs, the dwarfs calls out, “The Circus Of Nights! A hundred delights!” Villagers watch them on either side of the street while the doctor shouts questions at them through the window. The gypsy woman in charge (played by Adrienne Corri) ignores most of them. But she does give this answer on why they’re here: “To steal the money from dead men’s eyes!” She caps that off with a nasty laugh before the caravan moves on.

Any other time, they’d likely have been run out of the village. But they are the first curiosity to come here since the plague started. They’re being here also convinces Kersh he can find his own way out. After he does this with the help of his son Anton (played by John Moulder Brown as a sort of proto-Luke Skywalker), everyone flocks to the circus’ first show.

It’s full of animals, a pair of exotic dancers and a panther that can change into a strange man named Emil (played by Anthony Higgins). Later shows will feature acrobatic twins (played by Robin Sachs and Lalla Ward) who do their own shapeshifting in mid-air. Meanwhile, deep in his crypt, the Count gives out psychic warnings on what is to come.

And so the stage is set for tragedy. One that proves to be the undoing of many a villager and performer alike.

Might I trouble you for some tea?

Cheap Thrills

Even by low budget standards, this film’s production values are less than stellar. For instance, while legendary SFX artist Les Bowie is able to come up with a smooth transition of Emil going from man to panther going up some stairs, a fake panther head just comes off as chintzy. All this said, first-time director Robert Young makes the most of what he has. He uses nature sounds or diegetic music (usually the barrel organ in the latter case) to suggest hidden menace waiting in the wings. This gets paired with his camera lingering just a little too long in certain shots. Both instill dread on how the worst may be yet to come.

The lack of value extends to the casting, full of people you likely never heard of. For a Hammer Horror production during the peak years, a big name like Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee would be in a role. Here, arguably the biggest name is second-string player Thorley Walters as the doomed Burgomeister. The second biggest (and then only in hindsight) are Martin and Prowse in the minor roles.

All this makes it hard to distinguish one villager from another...or even care about their deaths. But in some ways, that also plays as a strength, showing them as people wore down by constant struggle. They come off less as individuals and more a gestalt. They are a collective of human beings on the verge of giving up, even before the hazards around them begin doing them in.

This contrasts well with the circus performers, who are far more colorful and distinct. Martin’s gleeful dwarf Michael is especially memorable, quick with a grin and laugh at the harm he is about to cause. It’s a match for Emil’s seduce-and-destroy routine, the casual predation of the twins and the knowing smirk constantly on the gypsy woman’s lips.

Enemies: A Hate Story

Because of these odd dynamics, neither side of this conflict is particularly sympathetic. Yes, the circus is here for a sinister purpose. And they inflict all kinds of pain. A walk through the mirror tent is usually a one-way trip. A confidence game is played on fleeing villagers with lethal results. And what the twins do to Stetl’s children is especially unforgivable.

But when it comes to retribution, the villagers are needlessly cruel. We first see this when Anna is scourged by the mob outside Mitterhaus’ castle before she runs back inside. We get another hint of this during the Circus of Nights’ first show. A temporarily missing boy nearly makes the crowd lynch the performers until he shows up, riding on Emil’s shoulders.

But with each fresh calamity Stetl suffers, that cruel twitch gets worse. The lowest point of that is when they shoot the circus animals dead. Only one of them earned the bullet…and it gets away. These violent reactions never solve any problems. But then, they were never supposed to. Like all mob justice, it’s about feeling better by “doing something.” Whether it helps or not never matters.

As a result, the village elders constantly fail the children they’re supposed to protect. Dr. Kersh and Albert are pretty much the only responsible adults in the whole village. But when the doctor leaves, the children are left to fend for themselves. The results are predictably disastrous.

Worse yet, Anton being a doctor’s son has him taking on responsibilities he is ill-equipped for. Being the earnest young man he is, he tries his best. But he’s in way over his head. No one either comes to the children’s rescue in time nor truly avenges their deaths.

It’s enough to make you think unthinking anger was the true curse of Count Mitterhaus. Stetl cared so much about its present, its citizens all but threw away its future.

End Of The Show

Most horror films have clear lines on good and evil. But Vampire Circus blurs them with a nasty subtext. It dares to ask if oppression breeds its own monsters, the kind that render people helpless to new threats.

That thesis is supported by the film’s conclusion, which has a final body count rivaling a Shakespearen tragedy (only half of which comes during the climax).

Sure, vengeance feels satisfying, my Guests. Is it ever really worth the cost? Does it not destroy more than it ever builds? Something to think on…

Until next time…adieu.

Might I trouble you for some tea?

The dark cloak. The slouch hat. The wig of long straight hair. The trio of sharp knives in the side. And above all, the mask with the frozen smile. That is imagery that has become iconic.

Love it, hate it or tolerate it, the film V For Vendetta left an undeniable impact on the pop culture landscape since its 2005 debut. So much so that the hacker collective Anonymous has since adopted the film’s mask as their trademark. The basic story is certainly compelling: a totalitarian UK government being undone by a mysterious, determined outsider. Since said outsider was an early victim of this regime, he has a personal grudge to motivate him.

Looking back at it now, this movie was an accurate reflection of the fears and hopes of the “War On Terror” period. Specifically, the fear of Western governments falling into fascism (a fear that has since been justified) along with the hope that the people could rouse themselves enough to fight it (see my previous aside). Add in a few Reddit-style conspiracies and it came along at just the right moment.

All that said, the original comic written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd was a very, very different beast. Given that it was a reaction against 1980s Thatcherite England, how could it not?

Granted, a few central moments, images and scenes are used in the film, some heavily remixed. But the comic itself is a total 180 in structure, tone and symbolism from its better known cinematic sibling. While there are certainly moments of peril and action, the comic is a much quieter, more vicious affair. It has more in common with a John Le Carre novel than a contemporary Hollywood blockbuster.

One is not necessarily better than the other (though Moore himself has been VERY public on how he considers the film inferior). But it’s clear that both have diferrent approaches and thoughts as to their themes. The comic’s thoughts are a lot more confrontational.

This may be why the film is in serious danger of eclipsing it. Which would be a shame. Such a shame that now is a great time to talk about the latter.

Parts Of The Whole

The best place to start is with the structure of this oppressive government, ruled by the sole legal political party Norsefire. That’s a detail the film mostly glossed over. At best, it just made vague gestures to Nazi Germany by way of Star Wars’ Galactic Empire. But as spelled out in the comic’s second chapter, this post-nuclear war superstate has a definite hierarchy.

The Eye handles all video surveillance, headed up by emasculated voyeur Conrad Heyer. The Ear does the same for audio surveillaince, run by the nervous, shy “Bunny” Etheridge. The Nose deals with criminal investigations, Chief Inspector Edward Finch in charge (more on him in a bit). The Mouth broadcasts all government propaganda, from radio to TV (please note this comic predates the 1990s Internet explosion), supervised by amoral, bratty Roger Dascombe. The Finger functions as a combination of police, military and Gestapo, first run by insecure alcoholic Derek Almond and later the brutally ambitious Peter Creedy. Finally, sitting at the literal Head is Adam James Susan AKA the Leader (which is the English translation for the German “Fuhrer” and Italian “Duce”, FYI). He has the exclusive use of a supercomputer called Fate that he is in love with. No, you didn’t read that last part wrong.

So, as you can see, nothing about this government is monolithic. Each branch has power centers, responsibilities and spheres of influence. As such, this does lead to a great deal of internal friction and power struggles. As my mention of Finger leadership should make plain, it would never be enough to kill one man to wipe this tight structure out. It would have to be crippled systematically, one piece at a time. Which is just what V does.

All About Evey

Like what you see so far? I’d really love it if you could buy me a tea (not a coffee fan, sorry!).

Buy Me A Tea

Now, let us look at Evey Hammond. Yes, Natalie Portman portrayed her as an overwhelmed media employee in the film. But here, she’s just a sixteen year old blonde waif barely getting by on her own after her parents’ deaths. Since she’s starving on her wages from the munitions factory, she tries her (very clumsy) hand at street prostitution.

Too bad for her she makes the mistake of propositioning a Fingerman. He and his colleagues are getting ready to take what she’s selling for free (yes, it’s as bad as sounds and frankly, “rape as character development” is one of Moore’s more digusting misogynist story tropes) when a certain masked figure comes out of the shadows.

V quotes the whole soliloquy from Macbath Act I, Scene 2 as he slaughters the Fingermen. Then he does his first bombing before taking Evey away to his lair, which he dubs “The Shadow Gallery”. It’s stoked to the max with all the lost cultural treasures the government has deleted: books, movie posters, a jukebox. It is this place where Evey begins her education on how to be an effective rebel.

In a real sense, Evey is the true protagonist of the story with V as her antagonist (something Moore directly hints at with V referring to himself as “the villain”). David Lloyd has said that he modeled a lot of V’s look on the Phantom of The Opera. That, in turn, would make Evey Christine by default. But V isn’t trying to win her love. He’s pushing her into accepting his point of view. To that end, he plays mind games with her that frankly smack of cult indoctrination.

(Just as an aside, I wonder if Grant Morrison was questioning this kind of “it’s for your own good” manipulation in The Invisibles, when his character Boy got led by the nose in a similar manner.)

As a result, she’s challenged, broken, forced out of her comfort zone and dragged to places in her mind and soul that frankly hurt. Yet, she does grow as the story unfolds, eventually becoming a self-confident, focused woman who is determined to finish the job V starts.

Looking back on this comic, it’s hard not to feel ambivalent. What happens to Evey is a big part of the why. On the one hand, she’s definitely a lot better prepared to take on the world at the story’s end. On the other, the methods used to get her there are just inhumane and repellent.

To question that is to question how good V truly is. And how much he actually did help her.

A Tale Of Two Wives

Two of the biggest losers in this fight are Helen Heyer and Rose Almond. Not a surprise when you think on it. In any fascist state, it’s the women who pay the most. As true for the ones who go along with it as the ones who are resisting or just trying to survive.

At first glance, you wouldn’t think Helen would be such a loser by story’s end. The wife of Conrad Heyer, she is the epitome of surface charm with a sharp tongue and social graces. Still, in public or private, she has nothing but contempt for her husband and his need to watch. She refuses to let him touch her, is shamelessly faithless to him and is the true power in their relationship. As she explains it, her biggest aim in life is to be the English Evita Peron.

So when V’s plans make the cracks in the government really form, she thinks she sees an opportunity to go straight to the top. She susses out political opponents, makes deals and is very nearly successful. Too bad for her she never realized her husband wasn’t the only one watching. That’s how she winds up with less than nothing by the finale.

By contrast, Rose is a social wallflower. All she wanted was a good, ordinary life. Instead, she’s physically and psychologically abused by her husband Derrick, his way of dealing with the pressure the Leader is putting on him. When Derrick gets killed by V (strictly due to a fatal mistake stemming from his abuse), she goes through a series of misadventures which put her in a downward spiral.

She becomes involved with another man that V also kills. The government bureaucracy denies her any benefits for being a widow. She runs out of money and turns to drugs. Eventually,she winds up as a dancer at the Kitty Kat Keller club (yes, I’m spotted the “KKK” here too). Worse still, she talks to her dead husband in monologues about how much she both fears and misses him.

Here’s the thing: her troubles are literally all V’s fault. He even alludes to it with Evey when he tells her how he’s “cultivated a most special rose”. That’s how Rose winds up being another disposable chess piece to V, one driven to strike a fatal blow against the government she now hates so much.

Rose is another reason why V is the actual antagonist of the story. While his actions have benefits, they are ultimately monstrous and destructive. No amount of philosophy or “greater good” justification can gloss over the human toll he extracts (a critique that can also apply to Ozymandias, the villain in Moore’s later work, Watchmen).

It makes the smell of his success anything but sweet.

Finch In A Coal Mine

Let us now turn to Chief Inspector Finch. He’s a middle-aged man who’s been in his job for a long time. One might even uncharitably say too long. Events and the loss of his family have worn him down to a permanent state of resignation. He has absolutely no faith in the government or the principles it upholds.

Still, he props up and supports both for reasons that almost sound noble (please note the “almost”). He’s convinced that some kind of order is better than no order at all. That viewpoint and his skills are enough to ensure his continuing survival, even as it continually tears away at his sense of peace.

Of everyone in this government, he’s the only one who can see nearly all of the big picture. It’s Finch who figures out the calling cards are connected to the letter V, leading to the letter being V’s official government codename. He also make the connection between V’s initial victims, one of whom includes Dr. Delia Surridge, a dear friend of his. The latter’s death does much to break what’s left of his spirit.

(Another aside: this part of the story seems to have been lifted from the Vincent Price film The Abominable Dr. Phibes, whose title character has more than a few passing resemblances to V.)

He also correctly predicts that the first three attacks are simply the warmup to bigger, uglier things. When they finally happen, his own actions manage to sideline him from the official investigations. But he stays on the hunt for V, eventually taking an extreme step that involves taking LSD at a terrible spot. The answers he finds from that experience finally makes him to stop running from himself.

Finch’s character arc is the biggest argument against “going along to get along” as a reaction to fascism. Following that course brings him no joy and plenty of pain. Neither he nor the government he’s helping benefit from it. In the end, he finally finds the courage to walk his own road. The only sensible reaction when your other options suck.

Villain And Victim

Finally, it’s time to speak of the mystery man at the center, Codename V.

We learn very little in the way of solid facts. We know he was part of an experiment at the Larkhill Resettlement Camp (read: concentration camp) run by Delia Surridge. We know he was that experiment’s sole survivor and success, breaking his mind in a disturbing way. We know he received the final letter from Valerie, the woman next to his cell whose life story moved him so. We know he engineered his own escape in a loud, dramatic fashion, one that still haunted the survivors’ nightmares twenty years after.

But that’s all we know for sure. The rest, we have to take from his words and actions.

In terms of words, his frame of reference goes far beyond the film’s allusions to Guy Fawkes and Shakespeare. A self-taught polyglot, he references so much else: Motown, the Rolling Stones, Aleister Crowley, Thomas Pynchon, Ray Bradbury, William Butler Yeats. If there’s an appropriate cultural analog, he’ll find it and use it.

Those are typically more charming and lovely than his actions. Plenty of the latter fall under the category of “horrific.” And it goes beyond his ability to kill armed men, both with and without his trademark knives.

V’s particular gift is being able to hone in on a person’s weakness, cultivate it and then use it to full, nasty effect. For example, he uses his old camp commandant Lewis Prothero’s obsession with dolls to break his mind. With Bishop Lilliman, who served as Larkhill’s chaplain, V makes him swallow a communion wafer laced with cyanide. Later in the story, he uses Adam Susan’s unrequited love for the Fate supercomputer to push him towards increasing mental instability.

All of those, you can justify as just desserts. But can you say the same for what he puts Rose Almond through, pushing beyond her limits? Or Evey, whom he arguably uses just as badly or even worse? Both of those put forth an uneasy question to the audience: how much do the ends ever justify the means?

Indeed, that question stands at the heart of V’s very existence. In the minor heist film Flawless, Mr. Hobbs (played by Michael Cain) argues how two wrongs don’t make a right is rubbish. He goes further with that, saying how you have to do an even worse thing to make things right again. That line of thought sums up V’s MO to a tee (no puns intended).

To the very end, he remains a blank and cipher. Unknown, unknowable, equal parts noble idealist and terrible monster. To his credit, he has the self-awareness to understand this. He even goes so far as to propose a final toast:

Vae Victus

As was said at the top, V For Vendetta the movie is on the verge of eradicating all memory of its source material. Given what the latter was all about, it’s probably not hard to see why.

It asks the most troubling of questions: what are people prepared to do to truly fight systemic evil? And are those actions truly worth the cost?

Also, all this digital talking has made me rather parched. I’d therefore really appreciate it if you could help slack my thirst.

Buy Me A Tea

Cover of Twilight Zone By Josh Zandman

As I’ve mentioned before, Twilight Zone has been the subject of three TV revivals. All of them have their points of interest and include episodes that can be called excellent. In fact, the most recent update probably comes the closest to consistently capturing the 5^th Dimension’s spirit. Yet all of them lack that timeless quality the original seems to carry by birthright.

This feels especially true for the first attempted reanimation in the 1980s update. Despite writing talents like Harlan Ellison, George R R Martin and J Michael Stracynzski, it’s still very much the product of its decade. This only got more obvious when they tried remaking classic episodes like “The After Hours”, “Eye Of The Beholder” and “A Game Of Pool”.

Oh, is this the first time you’re hearing about those remakes, dear Guests? Then you have an idea of how badly they missed the mark.

With that said, the 1980s series did strike gold every once in a while. Most of these episodes would take a story concept from the original and give it a unique spin.

Tonight’s double feature is going to show that principle in practice. First, we’ll be looking at a Rod Serling-penned episode from the original series. Then we’ll take a peek at the very first story of the very first episode of the 1980s show.

If you’ll just follow me…?

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

Hot Box

We open “Nervous Man In A Four Dollar Room” with the title character (played by Joe Mantell) sitting on the bed of the title place. The relentless score by Jerry Goldsmith speaks volumes of how nervous he is. Then again, so does his constant nail-biting.

There’s a phone on the wall, marked with the room’s rumber, 14. When it rings, he picks up. Turns out it’s George on the other end. Going by all the groveling he does, it’s obvious this is somone he works for. While the conversation goes in circles, we get the gist. Our guy is waiting on a job for George and the former wants to know what. After George hangs up on him without an answer, our guy starts pacing the room. That’s when Rod Serling properly introduces us:

“This is Mr Jackie Rhoades, age thirty-four. And where some men leave a mark of their lives as a record of their fragmentary existence on this Earth, this man leaves a blot. A dirty, discolored blemish to document a cheap and indistinguished sojourn amongst his betters.”

Ouch...accurate but ouch.

It should be mentioned that Serling appears at a very...unique angle during this intro. One that further emphasizes how little Jackie means in the grand scheme of things.

A while later, George (played with serpentine malice by William D Gordon) comes by the room, all shiny suit and polished grooming. He humors Jackie’s words with a contempt that’s as heavy as the heat. The coversation again meanders, thanks to Jackie’s nonstop patter, but eventually gets to the point.

Usually, George has Jackie running small jobs: shakedowns, heists, delivery of stolen goods. But tonight’s job is going to be different. George presents Jackie with a gun and gives him a target. There’s an old man that runs a bar. He’s been refusing to pay George’s people off. So when he locks up that bar at 2 AM…

Jackie tries weaseling his way out of it. It goes as well as you’d expect. George promises to be back at 2:30 whether the job is done or not. And the job had better be done.

Once George leaves, Jackie begins agonizing over this. And for good reason. As he tells his chest of drawers mirror reflection, he never got away with anything. He knows this time will be no exception. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

Being the “damned if he does” type, Jackie does his best to work up some courage. The whole time, he wishes he could trade himself in “for another model.” It all comes to a head when he pulls out a cigarette for his nerves. Only there’s no matches to light it. Suddenly a puff of smoke comes over his shoulder...right out of the mirror.

His reflection is standing there, crossed-armed, confident, a lit cigarette in hand. Naturally, Jackie thinks he’s lost his mind. But the reflection explains that he’s a part of Jackie, a piece that the little man has spent years squashing down. But that ends tonight. Because if Jackie goes through with this job, that’s it for both of them.

When Jackie tries running away from his double, every reflective surface shows the latter waiting for him. That bit of creative trapping herds Jackie back into the room.

After that comes the real talk. Jackie tries arguing he’s a victim of circumstances, that he had no real choice. His other half takes that argument apart piece by piece. He brings up every rotten choice Jackie let other push him into, every opportunity where he could have gone straight, every person who tried to help that he turned away.

The double is sick of it, all of it. He wants to actually live a decent life before it’s too late. Eventually, his goading Jackie pushes to a final confrontation that settles everything. And George is lucky enough to see the aftermath firsthand…

You could argue we’re looking at an inverted Jekyll/Hyde story here. But like the original Robert Louis Stevenson story, Serling is tackling the theme of personal responsibility. It’s often argued that while circumstances can be beyond our control, how we react to them is anything but. Mind, it’s obvious Jackie was dealt a lot of rough hands. But after making the same mistakes over and over again? After a certain point, it’s not anyone else’s fault but his.

One way or the other, the consequences of such choices always find you.

Buy Me A Tea!

Life Sentenced

Open on a shot of a young Bruce Willis sitting at a bar. The image suddenly shatters into a million glass pieces. Roll credits for “Shatterday”...and are they some doozies. In addition to Willis, we’re told this is based on the short story by Harlan Ellison (though his good friend Alan Brennert is the screenwriter here). And our director is none other than Wes Craven.

After that, the image reassembles itself, revealing we’ve been looking at a mirror. While Charles Aidman is no Rod Serling, his opening narration does set the stage well...

“Some push for what they need. Some push for what they want. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something might just push back...”

By then, we’ve pulled back to see the whole bar. We get a caption announcing this is “Day 1: Someday”. The aforementioned Mr Novins is waiting for a date who has yet show. Once his impatience boils over, he asks for a phone to dial her office. In his drunken delirium, he accidentally dials up his home number. He’s kicking himself when someone picks up on the other end. Someone who tells him that he’s Peter Novins.

Both ends of the conversation are confused as hell. Both think this is a prank or a joke. But enough probing from each establishes that yes, both of them are who they say they are. The Peter at the bar is understandably freaking out. He even dials up his home number two more times just in case this was a mistake.

It’s not.

From there, things get hostile. Peter A tries all kinds of threats on Peter B to get the latter to leave the apartment. Peter B advises him that coming there directly for a fight is a bad idea, citing the principle of “same matter cannot occupy same space”. He then lays into how Peter A’s life “stinks on ice.” It’s so bad that Peter B intends to fix it.

So this has a different focus from our last story. Jackie’s struggle was an internal armwrestling match. By contrast, this fight is external, a high-stakes chess match between non-identical twins. It’s a good fit for Wes Craven as director. Whether Freddy Krueger, his New Nightmare or other TV work, Craven made a career about alien realities bleeding into our own. Arguably, this is one of the most personal expressions of such.

Across the rest of this fateful week, we see this inner/outer struggle play out via the telephone. Peter A uses up his best moves on “Duesday”, attempting to cut off Peter B from all outside resources. Too bad for him Peter B has all the knowledge to counter all this. He also starts the process of making amends for A’s mistakes.

When “Woundsday” rolls around, Peter A’s a wreck, staying out in the rain when he’s not holed up in a crummy hotel room. No surprise he gets sick from that first one. By “Freeday”, he’s reduced to just hearing about all the changes Peter B is making to his life. They even swap a couple of theories on how this happened.

It all comes to an end on “Shatterday”, when they finally meet face-to-face. All I’ll say is the conclusion is poignant with more than a bit of tragedy thrown in.

Anyone who knows Bruce Willis only as an action hero may be surprised here. This two-hander piece requires an acting talent who can hold everything together. As either version of Peter Novins, Willis absolutely sells it. A or B, he makes both characters slowly come into view like a gradually brightening spotlight. Nor is it all about confrontation. Their initial resentment gives way to mutual understanding, even some respect. It’s the kind of acting Willis would later bring to films like Twelve Monkeys and The Sixth Sense.

When thinking on Willis’ forced retirement due to aphasia, seeing “Shatterday” carries an extra frission to it. Much like Patrick Swayze’s M*A*S*H guest appearance as a soldier struck with leukemia (which would later claim his life for real), it pulses like an omen of doom.

Coming Attractions

So...remember how this was far from the only 1980s Twilight Zone that did this kind of riff?

There’s more to tell there, dear Guests. Much more.

There’s even some worthy episodes from that run which have no analog to the OG.

You can expect to see more of that in the future. Near, far...who can say?

But for now...here’s hoping you’ve been given something to reflect on.

Photo by Jorge Torres on Unsplash

From creation to actual story, Stephen King’s Carrie has a mythic quality to it. For starters, this debut novel almost never was. The initial writing went so badly, King actually threw it away. Then wife Tabitha fished it out of the wastebasket and encouraged him to try again. Good thing she did, too. Once he got the book published in 1974, its success put him on the literary map.

Arguably, though, the bigger impact came from the film it was based upon, which came out two years later. It introduced King to the wider public, bolstered Brian De Palma’s career as a rising director and even netted star Sissy Spacek a groundbreaking Oscar nomination for starring in a horror role. Even now, fifty years later, this little tale of high school oppression and revenge still echoes across the American psyche.

As with all such successes, Carrie has spawned a flood of imitators over the decades. All of them follow the same basic plot beats: outsider girl develops telekinetic powers, gets tormented past her limits, finally snaps and then unleashes hell on the people who humiliated her. Sadly, even the official 1999 sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 followed this formula to the letter.

But the film we’re looking at tonight is a bit different. It’s called The Initiation Of Sarah, a made-for-TV movie from 1978. While it checks off the familiar plot beats, it also uses its sorority scene to create a unique dynamic. Along the way, it exposes uncomfortable truths about women under patriarchy and how the “real world” often mirrors high school’s pecking order.

Fair warning upfront...by no means is this a perfect film. Robert Day’s direction can only be described as adequate. Ditto Ric Waite’s cinematography (with one notable bad exception I’ll be getting into shortly). The acting is mostly passable, on par with most 1970s American television.

As to the plotting by Don Ingalls, Tom Holland (no, not that Tom Holland), Carol Saraceno and Kenette Gfeller (which answers the question of how many screenwriters it takes to rip off Stephen King)? Well, we’ve already covered most of that. Some of the additional beats come out of nowhere and the ending is…

Ugh, we’ll get to that.

However, there are exactly five characters (including our title heroine, thankfully) where the writing gets interesting. As the pentagram is explicitly referenced late in the film, it seems the appropriate framing to break down each of these players.

Photo by Haley Owens on Unsplash

So...let’s take it from the top!

Top Of The Tree: Little Lioness Lost

For all the copying of the Carrie formula, the writers did make one brilliant decision. To wit, they refused to make Sarah Goodwin (played by Kay Lenz, who bears a remarkable resemblance to future star Hillary Duff) a carbon copy of Carrie White. Yes, she shares some characteristics with her inspiration. But much about her personality is a total 180 from the source. This gets demonstrated by the opening scene.

We see a supposedly moonlit beach (actually, an awful day-for-night shot that could make a viewer question the condition of their eyesight; told you I’d mention that exception). All around is a pretty typical beach party of scantily clad teens running around when they’re not getting cozy with each other. But Sarah chooses to sit by herself near the fire, huddling under a heavy blanket or towel.

Soon, she’s joined by her stepsister Patty (played by Morgan Britanny, who looks practically like Lynda Carter Jr). No matter how much Patty urges Sarah to mix with everybody else, the latter begs off. Sarah’s thoughts are on the future, as tonight is the last party of the summer. Soon, they’ll both be off to the unknown frontier of Waltham College (to be represented by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for most of the exterior shots).

A guy comes over to talk Patty up, encouraging her to join him in the surf. While Sarah stays behind, she keeps a close watch from a distance. Soon the guy is getting too handsy with Patty, no matter how much she tells him to quit. Giving him a hard look (made more dramatic by a quick burst of fast cuts on her face), Sarah yells at him to stop. He then goes flying backwards into the waves, letting Patty get away unscathed. He’s so winded, he crawls back to shore while the sisters look on.

This scene establishes the many paradoxes of Sarah’s character. Socially awkward but fiercely protective. Stays in the background but assertive when need be. Usually overlooked but undeniable when using her power. Oh and about that power...Patty explains later that Sarah has always seemed to have it whenever she gets angry. So...far from a new development and another difference between her and Carrie White.

In temperament and affect, Sarah comes off as an indominatable lioness with self-esteem issues. For all her strength, she has so much love and loyalty to give. As we will see, some people appreciate her good qualities more than others.

The Arms: Pretty Princess And Mouse Spouse

Patty’s dazzling good looks ensure she’s the girl everybody notices when she walks into a room. The natural-born daughter of the Goodwin clan (Sarah was adopted), her mother head of Alpha Nu Sigma’s alumni committee, she seems to have the inside track to popularity. Once she makes herself known, Alpha Nu Sigma wastes little time accepting her as a pledge.

However, when it comes to Sarah, they are far less than welcoming. Mind, Sarah can be attractive when she puts in effort. But it’s still a far cry from the impossibly high standards of this sorority. That much is made plain at the sorority mixer. While they welcome Patty with open arms, they subtly rebuff Sarah.

To her credit, Sarah makes excuses for their rudeness, proving she’s a way better person than they ever will be. But the message is clear enough, Patty even talks of not pledging at all. She’d rather have her sister than the prestige. Ironically, it’s Sarah that encourages her to go for it. She knows how much being part of their mother’s sorority means to Patty. It’s enough to make the latter go through with it.

It quickly becomes obvious what a terrible decision that is. The two month pledging process pushes Patty to insult Sarah, ignore her and witness her constant humiliation at the hands of her new “sisters”. Nor does she get any solace or help from her mother. During a phone conversation, Mrs Goodwin keeps talking about how both Patty and Sarah are grown now. In her eyes, it’s time the two went their separate way. The implication of how little Patty’s mother cared about Sarah is all too obvious.

In this way does Patty’s beauty become a trap for her. Because of her looks, she is expected to conform with others of her “kind”. When she wants to buck them, she gets threats of punishment and expulsion for daring to question their opinions. This takes an inevitable toll on her bond with Sarah.

Still, one probably shouldn’t feel too bad for Patty. Sure, she never stops feeling sympathy, even pity, for her sister. But it’s a long time before she actually does something about it.

As the sisters become more alienated from each other, Sarah is sought out by the quiet, timid Mouse (played by Tisa Farrow). Yes, the nickname is less than great. But as Mouse herself explains, she much prefers it to her real name of Alberta.

The two of them first meet at Phi Epsilon Delta, a sorority that has seen better days. Despite the grand house they call home, it has very few members, just outcasts and the rejected. Worse, the more popular Alpha Nu Sigma has a traditional rivalry with them that makes them call PED “Pigs, Elephants and Dogs.” Still, PED is the only sorority who accept Sarah as a pledge and soon Mouse is Sarah’s neighbor.

However socially awkward Sarah is, Mouse has it far worse. She seems to embody the more timid characteristics of Carrie White. True to her nickname, she shrinks into the background, keeps away from people in general and never raises her voice when she talks. Her only solace is playing melancholy tunes on her violin, which she does beautifully.

But Sarah makes her want to reach out. Mouse constantly lurks in the background when Sarah’s around, unsuccessfully tries comforting her a couple of times and takes strength from the new girl’s encouragement. When she wants to run away, Sarah gently but firmly makes her stand her ground.

The queer subtext is anything but subtle here. It’s fairly obvious Mouse is in love with Sarah. She even admits to a couple of suicide attempts and a stint of institutionalization, which hints at a lifelong struggle with sexual identity.

For her part, Sarah never reciprocates this affection. True, she spends her time with teaching assistant Paul Yates (played by Tony Bill and the dullest romantic interest in TV history). But there’s no real interest aside from companionship.

Mouse unfortunately falls in that same category, leading to a love that will go unrequited.

The Legs: Twisted Sister and Mother Harpy

Our final two figures are dark mirror images of each other. Between them, one can see the full, dehumanizing cost of the sorority system to the women who inhabit it.

The queen bee of Alpha Nu Sigma is—I kid you not—Jennifer Lawrence (played by blonde TV legend Morgan Fairchild). She’s a knockout who admits that she’s always gotten what she wanted. As such, she rules over her sorority with an iron fist, covered by a velvet glove. Among people she considers peers, she’ll be fairly nice...so long as you remember who’s in charge. In the event you forget, she’ll use mild pleasure, deception and subtle threats to get her way. Even then, she has a habit of toying with people. Her favorite gimmick is to lull whoever she’s speaking to into a false sense of security. Then, when least expected, she pulls the rug out from underneath them. It’s a tactic she uses on Patty over and over.

With people she consider beneath her, she defaults to polite nastiness. As one of Sarah’s future PED sisters puts it, it’s all about “tact”. You can belittle anyone you want so long as you do it “tactfully.” Because Sarah refuses to bend and Patty remains devoted to her, she become Jennifer’s newest target.

The conflict remains fairly low-key until a climactic confrontation on the quad. That’s when Sarah uses a bit of telekinesis to put Jennifer in her place. She also recites a prophecy of what Jennifer’s ultimate future looks like. It’s enough to make Jennifer exact a nasty revenge anyone familiar with Carrie may recognize (pig blood thankfully not included).

As Jennifer laughs about it after, she stupidly thinks she’s won. What she’s really done is light a fuse. One that’s attached to a very big bomb.

Said bomb is the property of one Mrs. Erica Hunter (played by the irrepressible Shirley Winters). She’s PED’s house mother and a specialist on religion in primitive cultures. Mostly, she keeps to herself in the sorority’s grand house, supposedly working on her thesis. But she gets really interested in Sarah the moment she shows up on PED’s doorstep with Patty.

In fact, after Sarah pledges, Mrs. Hunter invites the younger woman to her room for a chat. Erica talks about her glory days as PED’s president, when it was the sorority everyone wanted to belong to. In too many ways, her telling shows she was pretty much what Jennifer is now.

Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Hunter drops boulder-sized hints that she’s Sarah’s real mother. Tellingly, she calls the deceased Mr. Goodwin her “father” rather than her adoptive father. If true (and we do have to allow for Erica lying here), this would go a long way towards explaining Mrs. Goodwin’s dislike of Sarah. But Mrs. Hunter pushes things too far by talking about Sarah’s telekinetic powers. It’s enough to make the girl leave.

Still, Erica is unoffended. In fact, she’s thrilled seeing Sarah step up to take an unofficial leadership role in PED. It’s obvious she sees Sarah as an heir apparent, the key to restoring PED to its full glory. That enthusiasm makes her plan on doing PED’s first full initiation ceremony in twenty years. If anything, Jennifer pulling her stunt on Sarah raises Mrs. Hunter’s hopes for it.

As should be obvious, there’s something a little off about Erica Hunter. Sure, she’s kind to all her girls on the surface. But there’s always the hint of ulterior motives in everything she says and does. This is especially true with Sarah. Once Jennifer’s revenge gets to Sarah, Mrs. Hunter prods her pledge to give into her anger. When a “test” results in a nasty scare for both Jennifer and Patty, Erica’s convinced that she has Sarah right where she wants her.

It makes her a weird analog to Margaret White in Carrie, a toxic mother figure who bring out the worst in her child. This is evidenced by Sarah’s final break with Patty over what happened to her.

However, Erica has made a very grave miscalculation about her protege. While she is about conquest and revenge, Sarah remains more about protection and self-respect. And no matter how much Sarah suffers, none of her pain will make her shed her moral compass.

Real mother or not, you’d think the older woman would have known better. After all, a Hunter ought to be able to recognize an apex predator.

Tarnished Legacy

Okay, about that ending…

There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s possibly the weakest part of the entire film.

Mind, there’s some good to it. It makes Initiation Night what Prom Night was for Carrie. Sarah uses her power to turn it into a nightmare for Jennifer and ANS, the former getting an appropriate punishment for her meanness.

Then she does the same to Mrs. Hunter when the house mother finally shows her hand. That leads to Sarah choosing her new sisters over Erica’s ambitions, which is good. It’s just it also leads to Sarah suffering a final fate that is undeserved and clumsily set up. One shouldn’t be too surprised when it comes to a 1970s story about a powerful young woman. But it’s still a letdown And that is all I shall say on the subject.

As to the movie itself, it took little time for it to be forgotten. Which is hardly unusual for made-for-TV movies. Its last gasp was a 2006 remake that cast Fairchild in the role of Sarah’s mother. While it improved upon the ending, it frankly belongs in the same category as Carrie 2, best forgotten.

Still, even with all its problems, the original Initiation Of Sarah deserves to be remembered. For challenging norms about conformity, which women count and which don’t and how buying into a broken system leads to tragedy, this film remains a hidden if flawed gem of 1970s television.

VHS/DVD Cover For Today’s Topic

There is nothing new under the sun. The deeper you go into pop culture, the more true you realize that old saw is true. Take, for instance, the fear of fascism’s rise in another form. The Handmaid’s Tale is the current version of this trope. Still, it was a very common mid-20th century nightmare for America. World War II had both ripped apart a lot of this country’s assumptions and inflamed old prejudices about foreign influence. This, mind you, despite how the USA arguably suffered the least of the major powers involved. In fact, the nation came out of the conflict as its biggest winner.

Even so, the resurrection of fascism echoed across various media for the next two decades after 1945. It was certainly on the mind of one particular WWII vet named Rodman Edward Serling. Though he had served in the Pacific theater, he penned a number of Twilight Zone scripts that looked at fascism’s mechanics in practice.

Today we’re going to be looking at a pair of them. And see how they’re getting paired together on VHS and DVD was anything but a coincidence.

Cogs In The Machine

“Wordsworth...Romney...Obsolescence...”

Those three words serve as the opening call to “The Obsolete Man”. As those big double doors open, Serling wastes no time sketching out the scene:

“You walk into this room at your own risk because it leads to the future. Not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world. It is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever left the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advancements and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.”

With halting steps, the aforementioned Romney Wordsworth (played by frequent TZ star Burgess Meredith) comes into this room. A spotlight hits him when he approaches the long table in front of him. He’s been called in for declaring himself a librarian. Now why is this a crime? Well, do recall that the charge is obsolescence. As the Chancellor at the podium (played with total Hitler energy by Fritz Weaver) gleefully explains at length, that profession no longer exists because there are no more libraries. In fact, he even takes the time to deride literature as “opiates” that make people feel more important than they actually are.

Despite given numerous chances to back off, Wordsworth keeps insisting that a librarian is what he is. As a result, he is declared obsolete by the tribunal and sentenced to death. However, he has a surprising number of rights that come with that sentence. He gets to choose the time, manner and place of his death, so long as it happens within the next forty-eight hours. As Wordsworth himself notes, “I’m a very rich man. I have such a luxury of choices.”

So he spells out a couple of conditions that the Chancellor has no objection to, which includes his death be televised live. Then he sets the time and place of his death: midnight the following day in his room. Within the last hour before the sentence is carried out, the Chancellor accepts an invitation to meet with Wordsworth for the final time.

Once the camera and lights come on, Wordsworth draws the Chancellor into talking about his worldview. The latter argues how Hitler and Stalin had “the beginnings of the right idea” but they failed to go far enough (sound familiar?). Therefore, the State’s solution is to purge themselves of anyone they deem useless and rebellious. He tries goading Wordsworth into begging for mercy on camera. When Wordsworth refuses to take the bait, the Chancellor tries to leave. And that’s when he finds out the nature of the trap he so arrogantly walked into.

What follows is a battle of resolve as Wordsworth’s death draws closer. The librarian spends the time reading passages from his Bible in his last moments, leading off with Psalms 23. As the moment of death draws near, we see whose nerve breaks first.

As always, I shall not speak of the ending. Like some many Twilight Zone stories, it has such a cruel, ironic twist that needs to be appreciated. All I will say: the ending makes it stand apart from just about every dystopian fiction you can name. It shows that in such a system, no one is safe. That includes the nominal guys in charge. Only the State and its needs matter, nothing else. That may well be fascism’s ultimate failure: its inability to keep rewarding its truest believers.

Nostalgia Trip

While “The Obsolete Man” deals with an imagined future, “Deaths-Head Revisited” goes into what would have been the very recent past in 1961. It all starts innocently enough: a German innkeeper (played by Karen Verne) checks her guest into a room. Then something the guest, who calls himself “Mr. Schmidt” (played by Oscar Beregi Jr), says something that disturbs her. Makes her think she knows him.

When Schmidt calls her on it, she says how he reminds her of SS that were stationed here during the war. The guest claims he spent that time on the Russian front in a Panzer division. Then he decides to all but confirm her suspicions. With polite sadism, he pushes her to admit two things: that they’re near an old concentration camp and the name of this village is Dachau. I doubt any serious student of WWII needs any further elaboration.

But for those that do, Serling has you covered. After explaining how Dachau was once known for its rustic charms and now for the horrible events of the Nazi period. As to how it ties in here:

“Mr. Schmidt, as we will soon perceive, has a vested interest in the ruins of a concentration camp. For once, some seventeen years ago, his name was Gunther Lutze. He held the rank of a captain in the SS. He was a black-uniformed strutting animal whose function in life was to give pain. And like his colleagues of the time, he shared the one affliction most common amongst that breed known as Nazis: he walked the Earth without a heart.”

In fact, he goes straight from the inn to the camp. Once there, he casually strolls around with loving nostalgia. Reliving fond memories full of human misery: men hanging by the neck in the yard, forcing prisoners to exercise in the freezing snow, dehydrating one unlucky soul for five days straight. It’s obvious how those recollections make him all warm and fuzzy inside.

He has every reason to think he’s alone. That is until he sees a ragged, grimy figure wearing a striped uniform near the prisoner’s hut he was in charge of. “Good afternoon, Captain, and welcome back,” the figure says, his voice devoid of energy. “We’ve been waiting…” At that moment, the camp gate decides to shut and lock Lutze. “That’s right, Captain,” the figure adds. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.” That’s when Lutze finally recognizes this man (played by Joseph Schildkraut): one Alfred Becker.

At first, Lutze tries to act like Becker’s an old friend instead of one of the prisoners he tortured. The former SS officer turns on the charm, which bounces off Becker like a forcefield. In fact, when Lutze tries getting too friendly, the other man’s lifeless eyes flare a warning that makes him back off. Still, Becker remains cordial after a fashion, doing nothing to dispute Lutze’s guess that Becker has become “the caretaker” here.

But the longer they talk, the more uncomfortable the conversation gets for Lutze. In a devastating monologue, Becker destroys his captor’s rationalizations for his actions as just following orders. The one-time prisoner even has an apt description for it that stings: “It was the Nazi theme music at Nurnberg, the new lyrics to the Gotterdamerung, the plaintive litany of the Master Race as it lay dying.”

When Lutze demands to leave, Becker wonders aloud why he ever came back. After all, he was quite safe in South America. After Lutze gives another set of self-serving answers, Becker announces the old Nazi will now be tried for crimes against humanity. When Lutze tries to flee, he comes face to face with a few more familiar faces from the old days. The eventual punishment they mete out is both harsh and fitting.

“Deaths-Head Revisited” lands differently than “The Obsolete Man”. With the latter, you had the safety net of sci-fi to take some of the edge off. Here, the story is more raw, referencing living history the world wants to forget. That last is made very plain by statements from the innkeeper in the beginning and a doctor at the very end. TV of this era could never fully show actual concentration camp horrors. But like Fritz Lang proved in his own 1943 anti-Nazi film Hangmen Also Die, it doesn’t need to. The sounds and visuals alone are enough to get the point across.

So does Lutze’s character as he comes under increasing stress. Berengi’s performance gives us a man self-absorbed to the point of malignant narcissism. When it comes to the past or the present, only his needs matter. Close to the end, he even shows off his old cruel self to Becker, just in case the audience had any lingering doubts.

The worst part is that he wasn’t even that important to this camp. He was just in charge of one little prisoner hut. But that was enough power to make him feel good about himself decades later. This is the type of person who makes fascism work as long as it does. But “long” and “forever” are two different beasts. As Gandhi reminds us, the tyrants and their systems always fall in the end. Only the truly stupid think consequences are never coming if they push the joke too far.

It’s Not Even Past

What makes this truly sad? Despite being over seven decades old, both these episodes remain as relevant as ever. In the first quarter of this century, fascism has made its long-promised comeback. Nor is it shy about giving the world visceral reminders of its horrors. The “future that might be” has become a big part of our present. Plenty of “strutting animals” are inflicting new pains on those who never deserved it.

I name no names here. Do I need to? Chances are better than excellent that you know exactly who I speak of, dear Guests. Still, there are reasons their spiritual forefathers failed. Reasons most of the current class have refused to learn. Bad for them, good for the rest of us. Because when the end comes, no amount of denial, spin or excuses will stop the tide that will wash them away.

So take these old stories as beacons of hope, my friends. Serling’s generation lived with the original nightmare and got through it. There is every reason to believe we can too.

**Medium Spoilers For The Lion In Winter (1968)**

You think you got family drama around the holidays? Trying being the English royal family circa 1183, a clan where the personal is political and the political gets way too personal. Worse yet, it’s more than just the family that’s affected by their decisions. The fate of nations can turn on entertaining just the wrong kind of notion. That’s the backdrop of 1968’s The Lion In Winter, where tensions come to a head at the Christmas court at Chinon Castle in the French province of Touraine.

This film is a peculiar artifact of the 1960s. It’s highly literate but full of raw emotion. It can be downright cynical in outlook but tempers it with a touch of realistic hope. Its two main characters are steeped in seething anger and bitter resentment yet unable to deny the bedrock of love buried under both. Much credit for this complexity goes to its screenwriter James Goldman, who also wrote the Broadway play of the same name it’s based on. Still, director Anthony Harvey deserves an equal due here. He was handpicked by star Katherine Hepburn after she saw his 1966 subway drama Dutchman, another film of less than pretty emotions and harsh characters.

Aided and abetted by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and art director Peter Murton, Harvey paints an unglamorous, unromanticized medieval setting that can get uncomfortable. These days, Game Of Thrones is held up as the grim and gritty standard for such a setting. But in terms of feel, this film makes GOT look like The Adventures Of Robin Hood.

Straw is strewn all over the floors of Chinon. Dogs and chickens run loose within and without its keep, even during official occasions. Even the metal on the swords and armor look as beat down and worn out as the stone walls. That last is reflected by what little fighting takes place on camera, includes one full engagement near the beginning and a vicious one-on-one corridor fight towards the end. Nothing stylized about such struggles, which are as brutish and vicious as it can get.

All in all, this bleak setting is the perfect stage setting for the drama that follows.

His Infuriating Majesty

Open on a clear blue sky. A pair of swords suddenly clash with a dull ring. Cut to a closeup of one of the wielders, a bearded older man of fifty staring at his opponent with clear blue eyes. He barks, “Come for me!” That is how we meet Henry II of England as played by Peter O’Toole. It more than sets the tone for his character. It also explains how he’s built an empire stretching from the British Isles to half of France.

Fun fact: this was actually the second time O’Toole portrayed Henry II. He’d done it once before in Becket (1964) opposite Richard Burton in the title role. But this Henry is a far older and more reflective man than in the previous film. Thomas Becket is now long dead as is one of Henry’s favorite mistresses, Rosamund Clifford. All he is left with is his family, which leads him to thoughts of legacy.

Actually, calling them “thoughts” is being kind. It’s actually more like an obsession. One that has gotten more pronounced since his designated heir Henry The Young King died the previous summer. While he has three sons by his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, a mix of external politics, personal biases and past mistakes is making that question extremely hard to resolve. He even cites King Lear (then just a legend, as this is a little over four centuries before the Shakespeare play) as symbolic of his dilemma.

Because his vast empire has never felt less secure, he feels insecure as well. On top of this, he’s also found out how much he likes peace in the last few years while France had no adult king. Enough so that it’s made him weary of yet another war. Still, he is prepared to go to fight to hang onto what is his and seems to have zero scruples on how he does it.

In affect, he comes off as unstable, impulsive, sarcastic and with an impish sense of humor. All of which serves to keep everyone around him off-balance. But he’s constantly wrong-footed himself by his sons and wife. Some of those betrayals cut so deep as to unhinge him further.

In many ways, he’s a bit of a tragic figure, a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge and the aforementioned Lear. He’s achieved what he set out to do and yet the prize doesn’t really seem worth it. Deep in his heart, there’s a yearning for things long since gone. Things he sacrificed in his constant climb for power. And lucky him, he gets to come face-to-face with most of them over this Christmas Eve.

All My Angry Children

As Prince Harry has told us, it is never easy growing up as a royal. How much more so for royal children in the Middle Ages? From the moment you are born, your life ceases to be your own. You are constantly at the mercy of your parents and your nation. Your wants may be indulged but never if they put the realm you are part of in danger. Such is the background that every one of the younger members of this Christmas court have to contend with.

First off, we have the youngest of Henry and Eleanor’s sons, John Lackland (played by Nigel Terry, later King Arthur in John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur). He’s his father’s favorite to inherit, despite how he’s an unkempt simpleton with no real courage or intelligence to speak of. Again and again, he proves how unfit he is to be king, led by the nose by whoever is talking to him at the moment. Depending on who he’s dealing with, he’s either a potential pawn or an irritating nuisance. That sadly dovetails with his disastrous future reign as King John I.

Next, we have Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany (played by John Castle). As the middle son, he is often overlooked in the discussions of power...until someone thinks they need him. He’s the schemer of the family, channeling the worst of his parents’ manipulative traits to get what he’s after. As his mother Eleanor notes, “You have a gift for hating.” His hatred is a cold thing, looking at everyone around him without feeling or sentiment. All he thinks about is what he can get from them. Alas for him, his destiny never allowed him to exploit such gifts further. He is destined to die three years later after being trampled by a horse in a tournament.

Richard Couer De Lion (or Richard The Lionheart for non-French speaers) is the royal couple’s oldest son (played by Anthony Hopkins in his screen debut). In his own words, he is “a sometime poet and constant soldier”, throwing himself into jousts, battles and anything related to war. While he’s his mother’s favorite, he cares nothing for Eleanor now. In private conversation with her, it’s obvious how disgusted he’s become with her scheming ways. One gets the impression he never expected any better from Henry. But to come from the woman who bore him and taught him? The wounds cut deep and it shows in his words. One can never shake the impression that he’s been running from a broken heart ever he figured it out.

Still, Richard’s mother is only one cause for his inner pain. Another is the newly grown King of France, Philippe Auguste (played by Timothy Dalton, also his screen debut). Now that he has come into his majority, he is all charm, smiles and intelligence. That last trait actually impresses Henry, who keeps trying and failing to see the late King Louis VII in him. But Philippe has no desire to be like his father, mostly because he’s seen the cost. At one point, he confesses to Henry how much he hates the English king for taking everything from his father: his wife Eleanor (who was married to him when she met Henry) his lands and his self-respect. All this is why Phillipe used Richard’s affections for him to stick a knife into Henry’s pride. While Richard seemed genuinely in love, Phillipe just saw it as yet another tool to exact a revenge on Richard’s father.

Sadly, this is also how he uses his sister Alais (played by Jane Merrow), raised by Eleanor and now currently Henry’s mistress. Of all the players in this drama, she is easily the most powerless. Taken into Henry’s court for her dowry of the County Vexen, Phillipe is now demanding that her betrothal to Richard be honored with a marriage to keep that land. This is far from the first time she has been so used. She has spent her whole life being passed around like, in her words, “a collection plate.” While she genuinely loves Henry for himself, she has no say whatsoever on what happens to her. It makes her look at the people around her with impotent rage. It makes her the only true innocent in this Christmas court. And the worse off for being such.

Her Imprisoned Majesty

Finally, we arrive at Henry’s biggest antagonist in this story, Eleanor Of Aquitane (played by the ever-great Katherine Hepburn). One-time wife to King Louis VII of France, she became Henry’s queen at age twenty-one (an accomplishment she flouts in Richard’s face at one point). But even after that, her scheming never truly stopped. It led her to start several rebellions against her liege and husband Henry. After one too many, she now spends the majority of her time locked up in Salisbury Tower. Only for special and state occasions is she let out to be paraded before the nobles. While she’s happy enough to go along with this state of affairs, she’s really just biding her time. She lives for the day someone springs her from her captivity once and for all. Her favorite son Richard currently looks like her best bet there.

While she is insightful about others around her, she pretends when it comes to her own true feelings for herself. Pretends that her imprisonment doesn’t hurt as much as it does. Pretends that Richard falling out with her isn’t the pain that it is. Pretends that she absolutely hates Henry for all the many, many insults he has put her through. Pretends to an affair of her own to get back at his affair with Rosamund Clifford (whic still makes her furious).

But every once in a while, she lets glimpses of the truth slip out. Catching Henry’s arm before they go to the feast to sincerely declare “You’re still a marvel of a man.” Expressing the deep pity she feels for Alais on being used as a pawn in succession politics. Her angry declaration to her sons on how they are the causes of war and should strive to be better. In so many ways, she’s as weary as Henry. The only difference is her focus, his being outward while hers is inward.

It’s easy to see why Hepburn won her third Oscar for this role. She absolutely owns the screen with her trademark patrician authority. But the emotional vulnerability under the steel was more than just her talent. The year before, Hepburn had lost her beloved Spencer Tracy to a combo of diabetes and heart disease right after filming Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967) with him. Look close enough in certain scenes and you can see that pain bleed into her performance. There’s a raw, visible edge to her words and eyes when Eleanor is confronted with how she’s lost Henry forever.

A Reckoning In Frostbite

The Lion In Winter is rarely thought of as a Christmas story. Yet it is as much of one as Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol ever was. Rather than one man being forced to deal with his past, we have a whole cast of characters forced to do the same. Also, unlike Scrooge, while certain truths are laid bare, few things are truly resolved. Therefore it seems nothing has changed...and yet also, everything has.

So, if you’re dealing with the passage of time, lost love or just the separation of family that you were once close to? The Lion In Winter might be the perfect movie for you this Christmas. And may your holiday be more cheerful than these people’s were.

In addition to the Nolan movies, a big part of the latest Batman popularity wave comes from the Arkham video game series. Marrying deep comic lore thats provides great story with excellent combat, stealth and investigation dynamics, all four games are a landmark among gamers. Even though each game is self-contained, all of them tell a complete heroic saga when put together.

All this makes it sad that the game that talks about Batman’s beginnings is now extremely hard to come by. The other three—Arkham Asylum, Arkham City and Arkham Knight—are now widely available on every online platform. But the one we’re gonna talk about today? You can only get it through the original discs or the Steam platform. Worse, a lot of the series’ fans like to dismiss it completely.

That last has been true since its initial release. The game had two strikes against it right out of the gate. It was made by a different studio and lead writer than the other three (WB Games Montreal instead of Rocksteady and M. Dooma Wendschuh and Ryan Galetta instead of Paul Dini) and largely reused visual assets from the previous entry, Arkham City. The number of technical glitches that had to be patched after initial release guaranteed it being memory-holed.

And a lot of its side activities does suffer from repetition and lack of focus in its incidental gameplay. This is especially true of the crime in progress and crime scene investigation parts, which are totally paint-by-numbers.

Still there are story elements of Batman Arkham Origins that stand out. Enough so to make it the best Batman Year One story ever made (yes, even better than Batman Begins). That deserves to be talked about. And it’s past time someone did.

Not So Silent Knight

To set the scene: it’s Christmas Eve during Batman’s second year of crimefighting. His biggest capture to date, serial killer Julian Day AKA The Calendar Man, is set to be executed this night. The general public still has no clear idea on who or what he is. Some people dismiss him as an urban legend. Cops and criminals alike think it’s more than one person. Also, his techniques are anything but refined. He’s little better than a thug who feels like it’s his duty to beat up criminals. While he’s kind (if distant) to civilian victims, he’s downright vicious with any perp he interrogates.

Even as Bruce Wayne, he can be cold and rude. We see this in a TV interview which he cuts off with reporter Vicki Vale. He seemingly has no other life outside of being Batman. Given the massive levels of political and law enforcement corruption, it’s hard to argue that he isn’t needed. Or to understand why he takes every crime that’s committed in Gotham personal.

Unfortunately, this night is also when someone decides to make it personal for Bats. Crime lord Roman Sionis AKA Black Mask has issued a fifty million dollar bounty on his head to seven colorful assassins. Rather than follow loyal butler Alfred’s suggestion to wait the night out, he’s going to shut them all down. As he rightly points out, they’ll do all kinds of harm to just draw his attention. And there are naturally other complications...

So...it’s a fairly simple plot: Batman The Early Years mixed with a Christmas action thriller written by Shane Black. But as stated above, it’s the little character details that make all this memorable.

The Price Of Loyalty

First, we’ll start with Bruce Wayne’s biggest antagonist, Alfred Pennyworth.

Now you would think that the antagonist would be any of the unbalanced criminals out there. But an antagonist in a story need not be the bad guy. Sometimes, they oppose the hero of the story in a way that actually helps them. So it is with Alfred.

The former actor’s fondest wish is for his Master Bruce to live a good, happy life. That’s hard to do when you spend your nights going to war on crime. Worse in Alfred’s eyes, Bruce can’t see how lost in his own pain he is. At the story’s midpoint, the butler becomes so alarmed by this, he calls Bruce “a young man with a trust fund and too much anger.”

The evidence for this is hard to disagree with. Bruce refuses help, lets his anger do his thinking for him and makes the kind of mistakes he’s lucky to survive. Small wonder why Alfred is increasingly worried the last of the Wayne family is losing himself to this crusade. Yet he continues to help out as directed, giving the Dark Knight the crucial support he needs to get things done. He very much believes in Bruce’s “night job”, even he is convinced there’s a better way.

By degrees, events of the night make Bruce realize Alfred has a point. Being the trained detective he is, he realizes how he was barreling towards burnout (if not already there). The tagline of the game is “Your Enemies Will Define You.” Alfred’s greatest lesson was that this is just as true of one’s allies. And eventually, everyone needs a helping hand.

Clowning Around

At some point in the story, the Joker appears for the first time in Gotham. Nobody knows his real name or where he came from. As far as everyone knows, he just popped up out of thin air to wreck havoc. What is known: he’s a totally sadistic thug who sets up elaborate traps and lairs. He kills without warning or remorse, totally outside the usual rules of criminal conduct. He even gets rid of one of the assassins in a random way.

He doesn’t think much of Batman at first, seeing him as little more than a source of fun amusement. But then Bruce does the one thing his foe doesn’t expect: save his life. He immediately questions Bats and himself over this. By rights, anyone else would have just let him die. Why didn’t Batman?

The Joker never gets an answer that satisfies. So by the time he is being interviewed by prison psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel (the future Harley Quinn), he comes up with his own. As he talks about himself in vague terms, we follow him into his mind. We see a past that he seems to be making up on the fly (comic fans will recognize scenes taken from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke). One where Batman—someone he only ran into this night—is suddenly the center of his entire universe.

In a truly twisted way, he comes off as a man in love. Or maybe he just wants to understand Batman more. Either way, we’re seeing the birth of an obsession. Two, really: his and Dr. Quinzel’s with Joker. Neither will prove to be that healthy.

The Three Faces Of Activism

While the game has no shortage of side characters, three figures challenge Batman at the moral level. Each has their own methods, outlook and goals for changing the city. All of which go deeper than Bruce’s preferred method of punching things into shape.

The hacker Edward Nashton AKA Enigma (later The Riddler) is by far the worst of these. His solution is to gather lots of blackmail material on every corrupt official in the city. At dawn, he plans on releasing it, causing a ton of chaos in the bargain. He peppers his speeches with lots of justification on why this will be better for the city than Bruce’s piecemeal approach.

But stripping his reasoning down shows this was only about one thing: proving he’s smarter than everyone. He stands as a warning to Bruce against thinking no one has better ideas than him. Being the smartest man in the room never guarantees you will be making the right decisions...for anyone.

On the surface, Anarchy sounds more reasonable. He takes aim at the abuses of corporations that have made Gotham’s corruption possible. Anyone who has ever heard an activist from the Occupy Wall Street era on likely knows his script. And he’s far from wrong how responsible such companies are.

That said, he suffers from a couple of blind spots. First, he truly believes his own rhetoric to the point of thinking there’s no other way. Second, he thinks self-righteousness alone will carry the day. That’s why there’s no planning to his bombings, just a senseless lashing out.

In this, he’s the epitome of the lifestyle activist. He wants to feel good about himself more than he wants to be a true agent of change. His brutality is an important lesson to Batman. Anger may drive you to take action. But it has to be tempered by thought to be effective.

Finally, there’s Barbara Gordon, destined to become Batgirl and later Oracle. At this point, she’s a fifteen-year-old girl with a photographic memory and a genius for computers. Of course, also being the daughter of Captain Jim Gordon (more on him in a minute) carries its own complications. She sees the corruption that surrounds her father all too clearly. Enough to know that it won’t get better on its own.

She sees Batman as a way to make that change happen, leading to constant quarrels with Jim. So it’s the thrill of a lifetime when she finally meets her idol face-to-face. Afterwards, she points him to a criminal operation the cops themselves are running.

What she shares with Bruce is an unshakable moral center. Where she differs is being able to take the larger view he can’t. She teaches Batman to think on the bigger consequences than what’s in front of him. While Gotham City needs fixing, any actions taken have to be for the greater good.

What Makes A Good (Bat)Man

At this point in his law enforcement career, Jim Gordon is a walking paradox. A cop who truly believes in the law, he’s surrounded by corrupt and brutal colleagues at all ranks. Though he’s cleareyed about how bent his department is, he refuses to give up on it entirely. He wants to protect this city but is finding out the only way to do that is help a man outside the law.

In many ways, he’s stuck. Captain looks to be as high as he’s going to go in rank. He’s head of a vigilante task force when he really wants to go after the real criminals. And subordinates like SWAT commander Lt. Branden have nothing but contempt and insubordination for him. Yet, no matter how much Barbara tries to tell him otherwise, he still thinks he can make it work.

Batman is a direct challenge to all this, which is why he and the Dark Knight clash throughout most of the night. As Gordon sees it, Bruce is just more of the chaos he needs to contain. Still, it can’t escape his notice that Batman is doing most of the needed work for him to check the chaos himself.

For his part, Batman refuses to reach out to Gordon for help. In Bruce’s eyes, being part of the system makes Gordon somewhat compromised, despite his honesty. The best thing Gordon can do is stay out of his way.

It takes an attack by the assassin Firefly (an armored pyromaniac who lives up to both parts of his name) to make them truly see each other. The confrontation would have ended tragically if one or the other hadn’t done their part. At the end of the night, Gordon still tries to take Batman in. But he begins to see how right his daughter was all along.

It marks the beginning of a bond that will define them for the next decade.

Diamonds In The Dark (Knight)

Jim Henson once told Frank Oz that he watched Andy Warhol films because you could find at least ten percent of it that was useful. So it is with Batman Arkham Origins. For all the shortcomings of the game, it has story worth talking about and remembering.

And seriously, WB (or whoever is about to run the place), this one is past due for a remaster.

**Medium spoilers of “On Thursday We Leave For Home” ahead**

**Trigger warning: brief mention of suicide**

Against all cultural odds, Twilight Zone has managed to become an enduring milestone for three generations and counting. That’s kind of remarkable when you realize it was only one of several anthology series of early television (some of which we’ll be covering in later columns). Nevertheless, it’s a fact. We may owe a partial debt to The Simpsons for it still being frequently referenced and spoken of. But even that aside, Twilight Zone had a unique perspective on the human condition that just continues to resonate. Small wonder it has been the subject of three revivals, an infamous movie, a Disney World ride, a text-based video game, two pinball machines and more recently, a VR experience.

Of course, any series with five seasons is going to have a few dud episodes. While some of that was bad writing, some of it was network interference. The most notorious case of the latter was Season 4 episodes being a full hour instead of the usual half hour. While Stephen King praised several of these Season 4 stories in his horror retrospective Danse Macabre, he seriously overlooked how their quality suffered from being way too stretched. However good “He’s Alive”, “The New Exhibit” and “Of Late, I Think Of Cliffordville” were, they all carry the burden of sluggish pacing and unnecessary filler.

However, YouTuber Walter Culture has pointed out there is one exception to this season. A sci-fi episode that managed to use the extra length to full effect while also making a point that still stings. And, bonus points, it also happened to have been scripted by Rod Serling himself.

Ladies, gentlemen and others...I give you “On Thursday, We Leave For Home”.

Purgatory Lost

We start off with a shot of twin suns in a painfully clear sky. They’re hanging over a harsh, rocky planet that’s home to the surviving crew (and some descendants) of the Pilgrim I starship. It’s implied they crash-landed onto V-9 Gamma where the heat is constant, there’s no night cycle and an occasional meteor storm swings by for variety. Serling minces no words about where they stand in his opening monologue:

Daily routines of this very bleak existence involve living in machine-refrigerated caves, desalinizing water from the ground well and monitoring space transmissions for a hope of rescue.

Ruling over this embattled community is “Captain” William Benteen (played by James Whitmore). A man who has been here since he was 15, he does all he can to hold his people together. While they may question his orders, none dare defy him. He rules with an iron fist but counterbalances it with telling charming, gentle stories of Earth. He paints it as a faraway paradise that is literally a world away from the ugly conditions that surround them.

And make no mistake, conditions are ugly in the extreme. Machinery has a habit of breaking down. The water is barely cool enough to drink. And when injuries inevitably come, they only have the most basic medical supplies to treat them. All this can—and does—wear the people down. Sometimes it’s benign, as seen in Al Baines (played by James Broadrick) frequently oversleeping from implied exhaustion. Other times, it results in a suicide of despair (one of which we see the aftermath of) from have nothing left to give.

But one big change is on its way now. A month prior to the episode’s start, a ship from Earth picked up their signal and is headed to their location. Just after the latest meteor storm blows through, said ship finally arrives to everyone’s great relief. (Side note: if the ship looks familiar, it’s because it was a leftover prop from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet and used in several other Twilight Zone episodes). The moment Colonel Sloane (played by Tim O’Connor) and his crew come planetside, they’re hailed as saviors.

Chains Of Command

Sadly, it will wind up being the last happy moment Benteen will know. While things start off cordially between him and Sloane, a resentment gradually builds up. At first, it’s little things: Benteen insisting to the Colonel he be called “Captain”, finding Baines and his wife using state-of-the-art medical tech, his people getting enthralled by Sloane’s stories of present-day Earth. Finally, there’s ignoring Benteen’s calls for a song in the cave to go play baseball out in the scorching heat.

That last one “makes” Benteen invoke his leadership privileges to put an end to the baseball game. Further, he wants the ship’s crew to stay away from his people during the rest period. As everyone is drifting back into the cave, Sloane tells one of his crew where the root of Benteen’s anger lies:

In the three days that pass before the ship is ready to leave, things go from bad to worse for Benteen. “His” people slowly start drifting away from him, making plans for a future they never thought possible until now. The more they hear about Earth, the more they want to see for themselves. And just themselves. Benteen’s proposed plan to stay together gets pushback as the rest want to live as individuals. Some want to go to Oregon. Others want to head for the Finger Lake district in New York state (Rod Serling’s part of the world, I should mention).

Benteen’s true inner ugliness comes out as his anger rises. He starts talking about his group to Sloane as children on the mental level. He starts bad-mouthing Sloane to his face about what the latter’s ship actually brought to this world. He even goes so far as to vilify Earth itself, throwing out as much hate as he can muster. That only isolates him further, making the people listen to him less.

And why not? A better alternative is finally possible. Everything they have been dreaming of. And now he wants to take it away from them? The results are predictable.

Time Waits For No One

Sadly, such dynamics remain all too relevant. One can see similarities between what’s going on here and various cult situations. But there are other uncomfortable parallels if you squint hard enough. The reality TV celebrity still striving for relevance after their heyday is gone. The one-time beloved pop star whose ten year shelf life has kicked in. The disgraced politician who cannot accept that the environment that made him a thing has moved on. All these are people willing to do anything to hang onto what they once easily held in their hands.

But time never stands still. The people they once depended on have gone onto another world themselves. So…how can it stay the same as it was?

Finally, the day of departure finally rolls around. Without giving too much away, all I will say is that Benteen makes a final choice equal parts ironic, logical and pathetic. Complete with a final shot and closing monologue that puts the period on a very tortured sentence.

I would say the reason Twilight Zone continues to endure is because so many of its stories remain all too relevant. While “On Thursday We Leave For Home” is lesser-known, it continues that tradition with incredible flair.

**Twilight Zone is currently available to watch on Tubi, Amazon Prime, Roku, Apple TV, Paramount +, YouTube Primetime and Fandango At Home**

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

Welcome to the Haunted Media Palace, the kind of place I always wish existed on the Internet. But after years--more likely decades (yes, I can be considered old at this point)--of looking and looking and looking, I never found it.

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So...what to do, what to do? The usual online response is to complain to anyone who’ll listen on how unfair it all it is. But what has THAT ever accomplished? Which brought me to the only real solution: make it myself. And so, here we are.

Secret Origins

Now, as to the name, it comes from a poem that Edgar Allan Poe stuck right in the middle of his classic short story, Fall Of The House Of Usher. It was also the title of the first cinema adaptation of the work of H P Lovecraft (which has an interesting backstory I want to get into...but later). At first, I thought of “Haunted Movie Palace”, a nod to Golden Age Hollywood theaters. But that felt wrong, as I intend to talk about far more than just movies. As such, “Media” made more sense, hence why it’s now on the marquee instead.

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What’s It All About?

Okay, so you may be asking what the rooms of this palace have to offer. Some of you who have seen two previous posts under my own name may even have an inkling. But for the sake of clarity, let me lay it out...

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--I will definitely be talking about film. But mostly the kind that is forgotten, obscure or just fallen by the wayside. I mean, there’s a billion online essays about Taxi Driver, Citizen Kane and The Godfather. What about everybody else? Also, I should mention some of these films will include the made-for-TV variety. By no means can all or even most of them be considered art. But there are a lot of interesting examples that had things to say. Enough for me to want to dig into.

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--As you may have gathered from the above, I will be dealing with TV series too. But again, the obscure rule applies. If I’m talking OG Twilight Zone (hint, hint), it will be a lesser-known episode rather than one of the famous ones. I will also highlight entries from series like Thriller. For now, I’ll be focused on individual episodes rather than whole series. But I can see that changing.

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--Comic book stories will also be here. The medium is far MORE than superheroes, after all. If I cover any of the latter, it’ll be because this particular story has something extra. Expect things like Elfquest, OG manga, Matt Wagner’s Grendel cycle, unique entries from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint and the graphic novels of Will Eisner.

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--I will also be dealing with video game stories. Honestly, THIS category is the most underrepresented online at present. While there are often exceptions like Bioshock or Alan Wake, rarely do I see any others just as worthy of being talked about. Needless to say, I intend to do my small part to change that. And that will include some thoughts on Bioshock and Alan Wake I’ve yet to see anywhere else.

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Oh, there is one last requirement I will have for my subjects. In fact, it’s right there in the title. On one level or another, everything I will throw a spotlight on haunts me. Haunts me to the point where I can’t stop thinking about them. The implications of what I’ve seen keep hitting me over the head. That kind of push, I GOT to talk about it.

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Still, I do hope that you find this fun and informative. Getting TOO serious about anything just makes it dull, after all. And if you have any suggestions on out-of-the-way stories to look at, please pass it on. I’ll be more than happy to hand my informants the credit if I like it enough to review it.

In the meantime, thank you for coming by today! Be assured that the palace doors shall be opening shortly. Until then!

Yours truly,

Johnathon Haney

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