The Geek Address

It was 1987. A time when men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.  It was also the year Beyond Dark Castle debuted on the Macintosh. For a nine-year-old boy, Beyond Dark Castle was the ultimate gaming experience, sufficiently addictive and challenging to capture my attention for hours on end. After grappling with emulators and archaic chunks of software, the game finally booted and the opening screen flickered to life. Lightning flashed and thunderclouds rolled behind the ominous parapets of Dark Castle. This was going to be so cool.  

For those who came in late (or, presumably, grew up in a less-than-cool decade) here is an outline of the basic storyline: “At the end of Dark Castle we left our hero, Prince Duncan, in the Black Knight’s Throne Room. He was grabbed by a gargoyle and thrown into the dungeon. Since that time our resourceful hero has found his way to the Ante Room behind the Throne Room and is ready to finish off the Black Knight once and for all! But there are a few things you, as Prince Duncan, must do first…Merlin the magician, who has been known to be helpful in the past, has told you the secret of unlocking the gate into the Black Knight’s chambers. The five Magic Orbs must be retrieved and returned to their proper and rightful places on the five pedestals in the Ante Room. Your mission is to find and replace all the Magic Orbs, in order to gain access to the Black Knight’s chambers. once there, you can match blows in the final battle in hopes of capturing Dark Castle. However, almost certain failure awaits you if you enter into the Black Knight’s Showdown without the Fireball, Shield and lots of rocks and elixirs. “

It’d been a long time since I’d faced off against the Black Knight. Back then, my gaming experience consisted entirely of clocking Arkanoid and CrystalQuest. Surely now, with years of gaming experience, I’d be able to hand the Black Knight his ass on a platter.

Dark Castle is infested with all manner of nasties: bats, rats, snakes, robotic guards, evil henchmen, gargoyles and enormous mosquitoes. Assuming you make it past the horde of bad guys, you have to face off against the Black Knight. Things started off easily enough. I decided to head towards the swamp. From memory, it featured a really cool helicopter that you could fly around (don’t ask me why there are helicopters and gasoline lying about in a medieval game).

I found myself in the Ante Room where I fumbled around with the controls for a while and knocked myself out several times by running into walls. Eventually, I worked out how to open a door. Black Knight…you’re in for an ass kickin’!

Shortly after entering the first room, I plummeted down a hole in the floor and ended up in The Dungeon. 

Crap.

The Dungeon is part of the game that I remember vividly (probably because I spent a lot of my time falling down holes and ending up stuck there). Once inside the dungeon, you have to beat one of the guards senseless with a mace, deactivate a razor sharp pendulum, fight your way past another guard, grab keys (it’s a good idea to pay attention to the prisoners because they’ll prevent you from being crushed by an enormous anvil), fighting your way through some more guards and escaping back to the Ante Room.

Although Beyond Dark Castle doesn’t compare to contemporary games, it’s got enough retro charm to keep you occupied for a couple of hours.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which was released in 1956, embodies the deep and pervasive sense of paranoia that gripped the United States during the Cold War. The film is often interpreted as an allegory about the threat of communism.  After all, if there’s one thing worse than being invaded by aliens, it’s being invaded by evil bastard communist aliens intent of destroying democracy. Some critics that this interpretation of the film is too simplistic, nevertheless, the atmosphere of paranoia that pervades the film is startling similar to widespread Cold War concern about communists.

At the beginning of the film, small town doctor Miles Bennell is being held by the authorities: distressed, upset and desperately insisting that he’s not insane. When someone willing to hear his tale arrives, Miles begins to recount the story. After returning home from a medical conference, he slowly begins to realise that a malevolent force has taken over his town. “At first glance, everything looked the same,” he recalls. “It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.”

If the aliens were hideous, green blobs with tentacles and Communist Party stick pins asking for directions to Washington DC, they’d be easy to identify: unfortunately, apart from their detachment and lack of emotion, the aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers are just like regular people. 

For this reason, Invasion of the Body Snatchers will leave you feeling uneasy: the aliens are among us and they could be anyone. In a chilling monologue, one of the characters explains what happens when you become assimilated: “Less than a month ago, Santa Mira was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then, out of the sky came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life. Your new bodies are growing in there. They’re taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you’re asleep, they’ll absorb your minds, your memories and you’re reborn into an untroubled world. Tomorrow you’ll be one of us. There’s no need for love. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me.” 

Perhaps one of the most disturbing scenes is when Bennell is forced to destroy several pod people - who have taken the likeness of himself and his girlfriend - with a pitchfork. Another scene that never fails to give me the creeps is when hundreds of the aliens emerge from the street and silently congregate to distribute pods throughout the country. Although fears that one morning you could  awake in a world where ‘everyone is the same’ doesn’t strike a note of panic with contemporary audiences, Invasion of the Body Snatchers remains a chilling exercise in horror.

Best line: “Look, you fools. You’re in danger. Can’t you see? They’re after you. They’re after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They’re here already. YOU’RE NEXT!”

There are two reasons why Creature from the Black Lagoon will go down in history as a brilliant horror film. First, it has a scary-ass monster: a hideous, amphibious reptile that shambles after its victims and squeezes the life from them with its webbed hands. The creature, which was designed by Millicent Patrick, is one of the most terrifying monsters to emerge from the classic Universal horror flicks. The second reason that Creature from the Black Lagoon deserves a mention in the annals of horror history is undisputedly the babelicious Julie Adams.

Deep in the Amazon jungle, a group of scientist uncover the fossilised arm of a mysterious creature. Little do they know that a descendent of the clawed beast lurks within the nearby lagoon. Naturally, the creature is upset by the arrival of loud-mouthed Americans. Before he can pack his bag and mutter something about neighbourhood going to hell, he falls madly in love with the devastatingly beautiful . 

Of course…the relationship was doomed from the beginning. Any daytime talk show host worth a dime could tell you that. If they’d been dating these days, the relationship would have ended up on Jerry Springer. “It started off so well, Jerry. He was kind, caring, sensitive…the three second attention span didn’t bother me in the beginning. That was before I knew he drank like a fish. I couldn’t believe it when I found strange scales lodged in his gills.”

Ben Chapman, the actor/stuntman who portrayed the creature, is a hit at conventions where he’s worshipped by middle-aged guys whose teenage fantasies no doubt involved skinny dipping with Julie Adams. Despite its age, the film still invites an impressive following. Why the longevity? It’s the same reason that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was such a popular and long-running program. Being a teenager (in the case of Buffy, at least) is quite literally hell. There are times when everyone feels like they’ve got scales and claws. It’s not easy getting a date when you have gills. Perhaps that’s the reason why Creature from the Black Lagoon is still popular. At some point, everyone has been misunderstood or felt a sense of alienation.

Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the most memorable monster flicks you’ll ever see. Best of all, it’s completely dolphin safe…

The Wolf Man, which was produced in 1941, is one of the most atmospheric werewolf films ever made. The movie opens with a passage about lycanthropy from an ancient tome: “A disease of the mind in which human beings imagine they are wolf-men. According to an old legend which persists in certain localities, the victims actually assume the physical characteristics of the animal. There is a small village near Talbot Castle which still claims to have had gruesome experiences with this supernatural creature.” When Larry Talbot returns to his family’s ancestral home after the untimely death of his brother, he discovers that lycanthropy involves more than just howling at the moon and chasing cars.

Talbot, a troubled and tragic character who bears the burden of his brother’s death, is brilliantly portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr. When he returns to Talbot Castle, his father reflects on the nature of their relationship: “Isn’t it a sad commentary on our relationship that it took a hunting accident and your brother’s death to bring you.” The real strength of the story is the emotional investment the audience makes Larry, particularly when a werewolf bites him while roaming the woods at night. After he beats the wolf to death with his silver topped cane, the creature returns to its original form: a gypsy who came to town with a traveling carnival (the gypsy, incidentally, is portrayed by Bela Lugosi in a brilliant yet fleeting cameo).

Larry’s first transformation is a piece of cinematic history. With horror, Larry begins to realise that he’s transforming into a werewolf. His legs become immensely hairy and his toes transform into razor-sharp claws. The special effects, though rudimentary, add to the horror Larry experiences as he transforms into the beast. Fully transformed, Larry begins roaming the mist-shrouded forest where he tears apart an unsuspecting gravedigger. 

The screenplay was written by Curt Siodmak, the writer of Donovan’s Brain and I Walked with a Zombie. Of The Wolman, he notes: ‚ÄúI did a lot for the American family life. I scared the little kids so much that they stayed in bed and the parents could play bridge. But these stories also have a deep atavistic meaning. They appeal to our hidden basic instincts which we remember subconsciously since the time our forefathers lives in caves. Man wanted to identify himself with the strongest animal he feared. The wolf was the most dangerous animal in Europe at that time. So, there was the Tigerman in India, the Snakeman in  the Pacific.‚Äù

The Wolf Man features wonderfully atmospheric cinematography and exceptionally melodramatic music. This is one of those classic movies that you have to watch in the dark with a big box of popcorn. You’ll laugh at the primitive special effects but enjoy the fact that it still manages to create a palpable and unsettling sense of fear.  

Best line:  Even a man, who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms. And the autumn moon is bright.

Wes Craven is skilled in the art of terror. And Scream is his masterwork. Thanks to Scary Movie, it’s difficult to sit through the entire film without smirking. Nevertheless, the film remains one of the most impressive exercises in horror to emerge from the nineties, far more memorable than the slew of fun but largely unintelligent films it inspired. Singlehandedly reinvigorated slasher flicks isn’t the movie’s only achievement; it’s a damn scary film too.

Scream begins with a horrific murder - perhaps one of the most grueling scenes the genre has to offer. At the beginning of the film, the title suddenly appears on screen - accompanied by the harsh sound of a telephone ringing, a scream, knives, a police siren and gunshots. Caught off-guard by the sudden barrage of sound, the audience is uncomfortable from the outset. The sense of dread develops when Casey Becker - the stereotypical, buxom blonde portrayed by Drew Barrymore - answers the phone and is confronted by a sinister voice. Herein lies the beauty of Scream. The murderer is almost ubiquitous: the shrill, jarring sound of a telephone signals his presence before the relentless, wraith-like figure emerges from the night to slaughter his victims. The use of sound, visual composition and point of view shots in the opening sequence is nothing short of masterful. Craven accelerates from mild concern to outright terror within minutes. Adhering to long established conventions, Casey Becker doesn’t hang around for the sequel.

Sidney Prescott - the film’s virtuous heroine who is haunted by the murder of her mother - is the next character to be plagued by the ghost-faced psychopath. Although Neve Campbell puts in a sincere performance, it’s David Arquette that steals the show as Dwight ‘Dewey’ Riley, the hapless deputy left to protect Sidney and her friends. Arquette delivers a brilliantly goofy performance. Nevertheless, it’s the small details that Wes Craven uses to develop his character that stand out. Early in the film when Dewey is sitting at his desk in the police station, we notice a pair of plastic handcuffs, a toy police car, fake gun and box of doughnuts sitting on his desk which subtly help to develop this character. As they’re leaving the station, in a moment of brilliant comic timing, Dewey pleads with his sister, “What did mom tell you? When I wear this badge, you treat me like an officer of the law.” Later in the film, when his hard-boiled superior officer smokes a cigarette, Dewey is eating an ice-cream. Moments like this make him a truly memorable character. 

Scream was one of the first postmodern slasher flicks. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson consciously plays around with the conventions of the genre, making reference to a range of classic horror flicks including Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the Thirteenth. Randy’s spiel towards the end of the film is particularly memorable: “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to survive a horror movie. First, you can never drink or do drugs. Second, you can never have sex. Big no-no. It’s a sin. It’s an extension of number one. And last, you can never, ever, ever under any circumstances say “I’ll be right back,” Cause you won’t be back.”

Best line: Do you like scary movies, Sidney?

Michelle rounds a corner, wipers thumping furiously, headlights illuminating the rain swept road. Yawning, she grabs a cassette, slams it into the stereo. The car is filled with music. Anything to say awake. Singing to herself, she doesn’t notice the fuel gauge. The car begins to cough and splutter. In the distance, she sees a small service station: an old, decrepit place. Michelle rolls up to the pumps. Rain pours across the windscreen, everything seems blurred, indistinct. Impatiently, she hits the horn. The attendant bursts onto the screen (giving the audience a collective fright). Michelle opens the window, hands the attendant her credit card: ‘Fill it up.’ The attendant seems slightly distressed. When he lures her into the shop, Michelle panics, jumps in the car and speeds off. As her car disappears into the night, the attendant screams: “There’s a man hiding in the back seat!” It’s not hard to imagine what happens next. Needless to say, it ain’t pretty.

Urban Legend was the first feature-film directed by Australian Jamie Blanks. The film’s opening sequence is a visually stunning, genuinely spooky piece of cinema. After a slew of post-Scream slasher flicks, Urban Legend was a welcome addition to the genre despite an obviously flawed screenplay.

The screenplay sticks to the standard slasher flick formula: an axe-wielding psychopath, who’s face is conveniently concealed by a bulky raincoat, is offing people in the style of urban legends (proving that Hollywood scriptwriters are not the only ones lacking originality).

Although the film is a reasonably entertaining slasher flick, I’ve got one big criticism: the movie is noticeably devoid of interesting characters. The movie takes place at a university where everyone is cool, beautiful amd ultra-smart. These students are so intelligent they don’t need to study - which leaves plenty of time to goof off in lectures, attend wild frat parties and read about sex in the library. The film’s main characters - with the possible exception of Alicia Witt - are extremely irritating. I had to suppress the urge to cheer when they were slaughtered by the aforementioned psychopath. On a positive note, horror fans will be pleased to note that Robert Englund (aka Freddy Kruger) makes a memorable appearance as Professor Wexler, the university’s foremost expert on urban legends.

Urban Legend is a visually atmospheric thriller with some half-decent scares, particularly if you’re feeling like a Jamie Blanks marathon. Head down to Blockbuster, borrow Urban Legend and Valentine for some good, scary fun.

Cradle Bay seems nice, peaceful - somewhere Steve Clarke and his family can move, settle down and forget about the past. But Cradle Bay, with its high proportion of clean-cut, impossibly wholesome teenagers, isn’t what it seems. Something sinister is going on. Cue the spooky music.

While most teens are out bonking, boozing and smoking dope the kids of Cradle Bay are baking apple pies, eating frozen yoghurt and ironing their cardigans. I wonder what Scott Rosenberg was thinking when he wrote the screenplay for Disturbing Behaviour: “Hmmmm. What’s something that’s really gonna scare the living crap out of people? How about a knife-wielding psychopath that stabs a bunch of teens to death in a film filled with witty intertextual references? No…I think that’s been done before. How about a giant lizard that runs amok in New York? No, I get the feeling that’s been done, too. How about…wait, I’ve got it! A movie set on an island populated by inordinately polite teenagers. Now that’s a scary premise!”

Steve Clarke (played by James Marsden) is the film’s hunky protagonist. Only problem is, Marsden looks a little old for the role. It’s about time Hollywood stopped casting twenty-something actors as high school students. Puhleese. I mean, seriously, are we really supposed to believe this guy is a teenager? I felt like standing up in the middle of the cinema and shouting, “Hey, Stevie! You call that cologne? Smells more like formaldehyde to me! Get back to the nursing home,  you stupid old fart! And take that walking frame with you!” Let’s face it…if you’re  a male watching Disturbing Behaviour, you’ll spend most of your time staring at Katie Holmes. Miss Holmes was never going to win an Academy Award for Disturbing Behaviour (unless there was a category for Best Voluptuous Dance In The Back of A Pick-Up Truck) but she puts in a pretty impressive performance.

One of the most interesting characters in the film is Mr Newberry - a deceptively dimwitted, rat-obsessed janitor. Newberry, who’s got “the full on Boo Radley, village idiot, Quasimodo thing going”, is played by William Sadler who delivers an entertaining, delightfully kooky performance.

Disturbing Behaviour is directed by David Nutter, who rose to prominence as a director of The X-Files. Nutter’s visual style means that the entire film looks and feels like an extended episode of The X-Files (sans Mulder and Scully, of course). Although Disturbing Behaviour received a critical drubbing, the film is a an entertaining blend of science-fiction and horror - one of the more memorable horror flicks pumped out by the studios during the late nineties.

Strange meteorites hurtle through the atmosphere and slam into a small Australian town, flattening a senior citizen and ripping a hole through a drunken cricketer. Much to their dismay, the residents of Berkley find themselves besieged by flesh eating zombies. Undead is a fun, tongue-in-cheek blood spattered zombie epic.

At the beginning of the film, we’re fleetingly introduced to the characters: a beauty queen leaving for the city because she’s inherited her parents’ debt; the newly appointed constable at the local police station contending with the anger management issues of her superior officer; and the local gun nut who claims the zombies are part of an alien conspiracy.

It doesn’t take long for the blood to start flowing. “Bugger me,” one of the cricketers exclaims as his teammate rises from the dead and promptly decapitates him. This film has everything. Zombies. Blood. Decapitation, Dismemberment. Zombies. The female lead even finds a lame-ass excuse to get her gear off. Something to do with acid rain, apparently.

The Spierig Brothers are fans of the genre. Their intention was simple: make a bloody, low-budget zombie film that fans would enjoy. Undead definitely succeeds on that count. While making the movie, the Brothers Spierig were inspired by the ingenuity of filmmakers like Peter Jackson and Robert Rodriguez: “The budget was very low for this film.  There were definitely some El Mariachi techniques used to complete the picture. Thankfully  we have computer technology that has really helped expand the scope. We were able to build  sections of a set and extend it later in CG, something those other films did not do. Most  of the money came out of our own pockets. The CGI is difficult to work with only  because we are rendering at high definition on fairly domestic machines. The computers  crash a lot. But the freedom it gives you to expand the scope of your story to a level  that only a couple of years ago would have been impossible is just fantastic. Almost all  the make-up effects are on-set appliances. There are a few shots that use CG to enhance  something that make-up just could not do.” 

One of the coolest scenes in the film occurs in an abandoned grocery store when the characters are inundated by a horde of marauding zombies. Marion shakes up a can of softdrink and slams it into a zombie’s mouth, detonating the sugary grenade with a pen. Another character wreaks bloody havoc on her zombie assailants, slicing them up with a makeshift weapon. Undead takes zombie violence to new levels of absurdity. Loads of gory fun.

Undead is the ultimate pizza and popcorn horror flick. Check it out.

Best line: “When I was a kid, we fuckin’ respected our parents, we didn’t fuckin’ eat ‘em!”