What makes a good story? And by story I’m including books, movies, songs, even a story being told by word of mouth. What makes it a good story. Simply, it has to make the audience feel something; satisfaction, recognition, joy, sorrow, anger, fear, horror, amusement, surprise or maybe even wonder. In the absence of emotion can a story be good? I’d say no.
So, when writing a story how do you ensure that the story checks some of those boxes? Well, plot is one of the tools you can use to activate the reader’s emotions but more importantly, you have to build the characters so that they’re human. Certainly, any generic female character being thrown into a scene where she is being stalked by a psychopath will elicit at least some emotion from the audience but if she is first made into a real woman with the requisite and recognizable emotions then the scene becomes harrowing. Think of Agent Starling trapped in Buffalo Bill’s lightless room while he toyed with her in preparation for ending her life. She is a trained law enforcement agent but she’s also a terrified young woman trapped by a predator. The audience is on the edge of their seats. Her fear is the fuel to make the scene real for the viewers. It’s gripping.
And this is just as important for any emotion in any situation. To be considered a success the reader has to feel something strong enough to make the story in some way real. Let’s test my thesis. Is the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a good story? Does it make us feel anything? Yes, there are scenes in the movie where we feel a sense of wonder at some of the things happening. And there is a feeling of worry for Dave Bowman as he faces off against HAL9000. I guess there is sadness over the death of Frank Poole. But are any of these emotions particularly strong. I guess on reflection the sense of wonder at the technological wonders we are shown in the flight to the Moon and aboard the Discovery One spacecraft are pretty interesting. But none of the characters (except perhaps HAL) really activate our emotions. In some ways Dave and Frank appear more robotic than HAL. So, on the whole I wouldn’t call “2001” a successful story. It’s almost like a travelogue to inform the audience about some interesting things that will be seen during a vacation trip.
Now compare this to the earlier science fiction movie, “Destination Moon.” Technically, there’s no comparison. “2001” is astonishingly beautiful and seems like a documentary shot in space. “Destination Moon” appears woefully primitive in its special effects and graphics. But the story has engaging characters and a plot that creates emotional interest. The characters are placed in danger and the audience wants to see how the characters respond to this crisis. Now surely, this isn’t some great work of art. It’s melodrama and adventure. But it works. There’s enough there to make the characters real enough for us to care if they live or die. Compare this to Dave Bowman at the end of “2001” travelling to the end of the universe through some kind of acid dream followed by him getting very old and then becoming some kind of “space embryo.” To me all of that was meaningless from an emotional point of view. It was boring.
So, the lesson is humans like stories that make them feel human. Because it makes them feel.
As a kid this was one of my favorite Universal horror movies. In a way it was the last of the legitimate Frankenstein movies from the series. Boris Karloff played the Monster for the third and final time. And they even brought back a couple of the actors from the original Frankenstein movie although as different characters. So, there was a certain amount of continuity with the first two movies. Basil Rathbone adds his considerable talents to the production as the titular son of the original Dr. Frankenstein. Lionel Atwill makes his turn as the memorable Inspector Krogh; he of the prosthetic right arm (which the Monster had torn off when Krogh was a child). And even poor Bela Lugosi is there as Ygor to lend his legitimacy as a part of one of the earlier Universal films (Dracula) that had a lot of “prestige.” Yes, this movie has everything. Not only does the younger Dr Frankenstein have a very pretty wife but he also has a curly-haired young son whom the Monster befriends. After this film the later Frankenstein films became kind of campy to my mind. So, this is the climax of the original films.
I won’t worry about spoilers because we know that the Monster will come back for endless sequels so let’s just talk about the story. Dr. Frankenstein and his family have arrived from the United States where he had met his wife. They find the villagers surly and suspicious because mysterious deaths have continued to occur in the village and the Monster is still blamed for these.
We find out that Ygor has been hiding the Monster below the ruins of the destroyed laboratory but recently the Monster was struck by lightning (!) and hasn’t regained consciousness since. Ygor wants the doctor to restore the creature. Ygor was a grave robber who was hanged for his crimes but somehow the hanging didn’t kill him so he went free. And now he’s befriended the Monster and it does his bidding. Doctor Frankenstein is intrigued by his father’s creation and we are shown him using “modern” medical equipment like a fluoroscope to examine the Monster. There’s some gibberish about his rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, cellular structure and we even find out that he has two bullets lodged in his heart which don’t seem to bother him at all.
So, the doctor sets up the generator and zaps the Monster but other than a short bout of consciousness he seems to have failed to rouse the Monster. But later on, we hear that the doctor’s little boy met a “giant.” And so, when the murders begin happening again both the doctor and Inspector Krogh are sure the Monster is on the loose again. After a dart game between Doctor Frankenstein and the Inspector (which was thoroughly lampooned in Mel Brook’s movie; “Young Frankenstein) we have the climax of the movie. Doctor Frankenstein kills Ygor in self-defense and the Monster kidnaps the little boy and brings him back to the lab. At this point both the Inspector and the doctor attack the Monster. Even after the creature tears off Krogh’s prosthetic arm, he manages to fire a number of bullets into the Monster. And Doctor Frankenstein outdoes him by a swashbuckling rope swing that propels the Monster over the lip of a ledge and into a very convenient, bubbling pool of 800-degree F sulfur-bearing magma.
Alright. It’s a silly movie. But it’s a lot fun. I’ve got a warm spot for this one. All the hand waving to make the Monster’s existence “scientific” appeals to the ten-year-old kid in me. They even go so far as to clarify that the “ray” that the original movie said was “beyond the ultraviolet” was actually cosmic rays. Well, cosmic rays! What more could you ask? Highly recommended for ten-year-old boys and other folks who like a good monster movie in black and white.
To call this a horror movie would be kind of absurd. Whatever value this movie possesses stems from the enjoyment of imagining the quaint innocence of the audiences in the 1930s being frightened by the silliness on screen. Reviewing this movie, I will not worry about spoiling the plot twists. They are too ridiculous to consider.
Peter and Joan Alison are an American newlywed couple inexplicably celebrating their honeymoon in the Carpathian Mountains of Hungary. They meet Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) on the Orient Express and all three leave the train to take a bus to their destination. But the bus crashes during a rain storm and Joan is injured so Werdegast takes them to the home of his arch-enemy Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff) whom Werdegast believes has stolen his wife while Werdegast was imprisoned in Russia for fifteen years after WWI.
Werdegast treats Joan for her injury and injects her with a powerful sedative so she will sleep the night. Peter Alison sees that Werdegast and Poelzig are foes but he bides his time to leave the house the next morning when his wife is well enough to travel. Meanwhile Werdegast confronts Poelzig and demands to know where his wife Karen is. Poelzig brings him down into the subterranean fortress under his house (the one still wired with dynamite). Here he is shown Karen’s embalmed body in a giant bell jar. And he is told that his daughter (also named Karen) is dead. Slightly later on we find out that Werdegast’s daughter isn’t dead but instead is married to Poelzig and that she believes her father died in prison.
The next morning, we learn that Poelzig is a Satanist whose cult is about to celebrate the new moon by sacrificing a female victim. Poelzig wants Joan to be that sacrifice. Werdegast agrees to play a game of chess against Poelzig to decide Joan’s fate but he loses and so Werdegast seems to acquiesce in her role as victim and allows his man-servant to obey Poelzig and render Peter unconscious with some Hungarian karate chop and imprison him in a round room with a rotating tube as its wall. Don’t ask me why such a room is part of the story. The whole house is full of goofy modernist architectural features. Meanwhile Joan is being prepped for her role as sacrifice at the satanist ceremony.
But at the last second Werdegast rescues Joan and while leading her to escape they find the body of his daughter Karen that Poelzig has just murdered. Through a series of fight scenes Werdegast and his man-servant manage to manacle Poelzig and Werdegast uses a scalpel to skin Poelzig alive. Joan sees this and starts screaming. Peter finds a gun that Poelzig’s dead servant dropped and thinking that Werdegast is harming Joan, he shoots him. While dying of his gunshot wound, Werdegast orders the young couple to flee the house as fast as possible while he triggers a five-minute timing device that will set off the dynamite under the house killing himself, Poelzig and the whole satanic cult gathered at the house.
O, brother! Well, on the positive side the architecture in Poelzig’s house has some interesting German Expressionist touches. And the dialog is sometimes hilariously over the top. There is Karloff reciting a two-minute incantation in Latin which is quite absurd. And then when Lugosi is supposedly flaying the flesh off of Karloff’s face, they show Lugosi’s shadow and the way his hand is moving it looks like he is scribbling on him. This movie is a museum piece of what a 1930s horror movie might be. And there is just enough atmosphere to make watching it silly fun. Only for fans of the genre.
It is entirely possible that this is the first science fiction movie I ever saw. I seem to remember seeing this on tv as a pretty young kid (maybe seven or eight years old). For that reason, it had a huge effect on my perspective on entertainment. Of course, watching this movie after all these years is a shock from seeing just how ridiculous the whole production is. But at the same time there is a fondness based on the nostalgia it inspires in me, even after all this time.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
David MacLean is a young grade school boy whose father is an engineer at a local factory doing top-secret government work. He’s also friends with the local astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston. David has a small telescope in his bedroom. One night he is awakened about four thirty in the morning by what looks and sounds like a thunder storm but as he watches out his window, he sees a flying saucer land in a sand pit located adjacent to his family’s property.
David runs into his parents’ room and tells them the story. Out of a desire to find out what had scared his son George MacLean goes outside to the sand pit to investigate. And the aliens open up a hole in the sand pit and capture George. When George does not reappear by daylight Mary MacLean calls the police and reports her husband missing. Two patrolmen in a squad car show up and while searching the sand pit area they are also captured by the aliens.
A little later George returns to his house and we immediately see that he is no longer the same man. Whereas previous to his disappearance he was a friendly husband and father, now he is a surly abusive man who backhands his young son for insisting that he saw the space ship land. Also, David discovers that George has a small X shaped wound on the back of his neck near his shirt collar. After a few minutes the two patrolmen appear at the house and they obviously behave just as George is.
And this pattern repeats as through his telescope David sees a little neighborhood girl Kathy Wilson being captured. Later George pushes his wife Mary into the sand pit. And off camera, the town’s Chief of Police also ends up captured too. With all these people now controlled by the saucer-men, their diabolical plan begins to unfold. They are trying to sabotage the nearby factory that is building an atomic powered rocket along with the other plants that are supplying components. Kathy Wilson’s father; Dr. William Wilson is a physicist who is designing the atomic rocket (although how a physicist becomes a design engineer is beyond me). So, she attempts to kill her family by burning down their house. George works in the factory creating the rocket engine so he and his wife attempt to assassinate Dr. Wilson with a high-powered rifle. And the two police officers successfully burn down the engine plant.
At first no one believes David when tells his story and the Police Chief has him imprisoned in a jail cell awaiting his parents’ appearance and probably his subsequent death. But the desk sergeant is disturbed by his obvious fear and calls a medical doctor to look at him. Dr. Patricia Blake listens sympathetically to David’s crazy story and when she finds out that they both know the astronomer Stuart Kelson, she calls him up and is told that David is a very honest and serious child. And when his parents arrive to get David, she notices that they really are behaving abnormally and so she makes up a story about David having symptoms of polio to prevent them from dragging him away.
Now Dr. Blake takes him to Stuart Kelston and we get a crash course on the latest theories on Martian biology. And somehow Kelston intuits that Martians have gotten wind of the atomic rocket project and they are here in their flying saucer to sabotage the project. And Kelston trains his enormous observatory telescope on the sand pit across town just as George MacLean pushes General Mayberry, who is in charge of security for the whole rocket project, into the sand pit.
Kelston springs into action. He calls the Pentagon and a Col. Fielding orders a mechanized brigade of tanks and other weaponry to descend on this little town. Orders are given to arrest the MacLeans, the Police Chief, the two patrolmen and General Mayberry. Only David’s parents are captured alive and are sent to a hospital to attempt to remove the control devices in the back of their necks. The army surrounds the sand pit and eventually finds the saucer and use explosives to open up a tunnel leading to the ship. Fielding and his men descend down and attack the “mu-tants” that serve the super-intelligent Martian. The servants are about seven feet tall covered with green skin and have bug-eyes. They shamble around so slowly it’s amazing they get anything actually done. The master is this little homunculus in what looks like a glass bell jar that the mu-tants carry around. He’s got a humanoid face on top of a body that’s an immobile lump with a few tentacles sticking out here and there. He seems to have been spray-painted with bronze colored paint. He controls his servants by telepathy which we observe as him furrowing his brow. At some point, David and Dr Blake are captured when a hole randomly opens in the ground below their feet. And they have to be rescued by the army and Dr. Kelston (he seems to be in love with Patricia Blake).
The last scenes are of the whole human team running away from the sand pit as the space ship begins to depart with a bomb that the army planted in it about to explode. In the last scene David wakes up and runs into his parents’ room to discover that the whole thing was a nightmare. He goes back to his room and falls asleep. But at four-thirty he’s awakened by noise and sees exactly the same sight of the saucer landing in the sand pit. The End.
My thoughts on this movie. Where to begin? Okay, so the whole movie drips with 1950’s cold-war paranoia. Every character portrayal is over the top and the dialog is pretty hokey. The astronomer’s explanation why the Martians are aware of this atomic rocket project makes no sense at all. And the idea that a local astronomer can summon an army by calling the Pentagon is pretty hilarious. As for the aliens, the costumes and the scenery in the tunnels are laughably bad and the space ship looks like a 1950’s set designer’s idea of a 2000’s manufacturing space. The special effects, mainly, an infra-red “ray gun” is pathetic. On the other hand, the personality of the boy; David is sympathetic and Dr. Blake comes off as a compassionate woman which is always attractive. And the whole action of the army in their “war” against the aliens is ridiculous. The colonel leads his troops into the tunnels and he’s firing machine guns at mutants instead of his gunners doing that. But it’s a great bit of nostalgia. The terrible special effects and the vintage military clips from WWII training footage is wonderful. And all the B-movie and television actors like Leif Erickson, Hillary Brooke (The Abbot and Costello Show), Barbara Billingsley (Leave it to Beaver), Robert Shayne (Inspector Henderson on the Superman Show) and Richard Deacon (Mel Cooley on the Dick Van Dyke Show) are so familiar and comforting. I highly recommend this movie for anyone who loves schlocky old sci-fi.
Guillermo del Toro is a horror story aficionado. He really loves the genre and has been dreaming for decades about filming Frankenstein. And being a “serious” director, he of course wants his version to be the definitive
one. Making the picture for Netflix means there will be a lot of cash available for sets, makeup, special effects and all the other expensive aspects of modern moviemaking. So, this movie will probably be visually stunning. And since del Toro has been around for a while and made several popular and critically acclaimed films with fantastical themes there is a good chance that his Frankenstein will have many good qualities.
The only question I have is whether anyone wants to see another Frankenstein. I’ve seen several film versions of the story and many years ago I read Mary Shelley’s novel. I’m not sure there’s anything left to dig out of that mine. In a way, the modern version of Frankenstein is Blade Runner. Man playing God and making men after his own image and then treating them badly is the story of Eldon Tyrell creating the replicants and then one of them; Roy Batty hunting him down and then killing his creator for making him a lesser being.
Do we still want the nineteenth century guess at what genetic engineering would look like? In the twenty first century we kind of already have the technology to play God. We could make a Frankenstein’s monster (or more like a Roy Batty). Do we still need the guy with the bolts sticking out of his neck?
Well, that’s the question I’m asking myself. I remember when Kenneth Branagh directed himself as Victor Frankenstein in a 1994 version with, of all people, Robert De Niro as the monster. It was really awful. And I think that may have quenched any future appetite on my part for this story.
Now maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe this will be a stunning production that captures something from Shelley’s story that elevates the movie into a great entertainment. I’ll be waiting for the movie to premiere on Netflix and I’ll see what the critics have to say. But I’m deeply skeptical.
I think the future of fantasy and horror will require new stories that speak to us in this age of artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. But even stories like “The Matrix” and “Blade Runner” seem to be recycling old ideas. It’s going to take a poet with a PhD in cybernetics or gene splicing to make the next great mythical story. And who knows, maybe we’re tired of horror stories altogether. Maybe we’re looking for the next great fairy tale with a hero who lives “happily ever after.” Maybe in the next story the monster doesn’t hate and destroy his creator but pities and helps him instead. Now that would be a real curveball and might sell a hundred million tickets. That would be a story I’d pay to see. We could all use a feel-good story. In fact. we’re dying for one.
May I offer up this the 1985 SciFi Enemy Mine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_(film) )? It is an excellent adaptation of Barry B. Longyear’s novella of the same name, Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (of Das Boot fame). It had a low budget (40 Million) and its special effects are well, dated even for 1985. Excellent acting by Dennis Quaid and Louis Gosset as the principals. Bombed at the box office as it was Neither Star Wars, Dune, nor Wrath of Khan.
I would also like to add in the war film department the 1969 film Battle Of Britain . To say the storyline is weak is an understatement (although it is briefly redeemed by Susannah York prancing about in her knickers). The killer here is the aerial fight scenes. These involve LARGE numbers of actual Spitfires, Me109 and Heinkel 111 aircraft (Me109 and Heinkels being part of the Spanish Air Force). They are well scripted and had input from Douglass Baeder and Air Marshall Dowding. It has a G rating but some scenes are almost too realistic and freaked out the 8-year-old me, who dunned my dad into taking me to the movie.
I always thought this was a great short story. What a perfect subject for an easily made mini-movie. No super complicated special effects. Some old clothes and props. I like it.
Sadly it seems that Mr. Whedon wants to get a little more, shall we say physical, with the talent if the Rumors out of the Buffy Series are true. This has always been an issue in Hollywood, sometimes they chase the ingenues and sometimes they chase the beefcake.
That aside what Whedon did is loved the material. He loved Captain America, he loved the Avengers and he wouldn’t change the material (more than a smidge or two). This strategy doesn’t always work. Brad Bird Loved/Loves the Barsoom mythos (and clearly knew it well based on how he plotted it). He gave Dejah Thoris more of a part (and far more of a costume) than in the original books, but he didn’t eviscerate/geld John Carter as a hero to do it. Here the issue was the Disney Princess based marketers couldn’t bring themselves to market A Princess of Mars . They couldn’t even bring themselves to call it John Carter of Mars they had no clue how to sell it and so its existence and nature was known only to the more rabid part of the Barsoom fans (e.g. myself). I took my wife and daughters (college/high school age for the girls) and they loved it. They wondered why the heck there was practically no one in the giant IMAX theater on a Saturday PM showing.
Loving the material is a start but is NOT enough. Peter Jackson LOVED Lord of the Rings but was constrained to make 3 movies (albeit nearly 9 hrs in standard form). He loved the Hobbit too but was given FAR to free a rein. In the interests of adding female characters and filling out 3 long films, he padded the heck out of The Hobbit and made a sloppy mess. George Lucas made the original 3 Star Wars films and loved his material and did fairly well until the damnable Ewoks. This is likely because he had his wife (later divorced) riding herd on him as editor. When he made the Prequel Trilogy no one could tell him no and loved himself a little TOO much and he made crap. Many years later Disney said “Hold my beer” and made the sequel trilogy that makes the prequels look like Casablanca or Citizen Kane.
So it looks like the recipe is get a director and/or screen writer that loves the material. Then make sure there is a check to their choices so they don’t go straight up fan boi/fan grrl.
And for heavens sake Disney, please try something NEW. There’s like 20+ marvel movies/tv shows, at least 11 Star wars movies plus hours of TV, Princess movies by the dozens and 4 Toy Stories with a 5th on the way. Try something new and exotic (for you) it can’t hurt more than the last dozen or so flops. And for the love of all that is Holy Send Kathleen Kennedy on an all expense paid 1 year trip to an isolated portion of Borneo with no phone or internet connections. And let Star Wars lie fallow for a couple years that horse (or wookie) is well and truly dead.
As I mentioned in an earlier post Disney (and by extension Hollywood) realizes that they’ve alienated the male half of the human race. And as I gleefully mentioned this is all their own fault and it’s hilarious that it’s a surprise for them. And after torching two of the most valuable male-oriented intellectual properties (Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe), instead of trying to fix the problems and repair the damage to these brands they’ve decided to bury their losses and start from scratch with brand new franchises.
Well, you’ve got to admire their optimism. Maybe they haven’t heard the old saying about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But it’s their money (or their stockholders anyway).
But in a sense, they’ve got it half right. Half of their problem is that sequel after sequel has drained all the life out of their franchises. So new stories and characters is a good direction to go in. People like to be entertained and meeting new characters is part of that entertainment. And even though there are only a few overarching plots to an adventure story it helps to change the names of the heroes, villains, magic rings, super-weapons and princesses from story to story.
So far, so good. But now comes the tricky part. Listen up Disney:
DON’T MAKE THE HERO A GIRL-BOSS. THE GIRL IN THE STORY IS THE LOVE INTEREST OF THE HERO. SHE IS THE REWARD FOR THE HERO SAVING THE DAY. SHE MAY TAKE UP A BOW OR A DAGGER IN A PINCH BUT SHE’S NOT THERE TO SAVE THE HERO AND SHE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE.
I hope I was clear there. Use the traditional hero saga as the backbone of the story and find a writer and a director who can work with such a story in a creative and entertaining fashion and you will make billions of dollars. Just as a for instance Joss Whedon directed the first Avengers movie. It made $1.52 billion worldwide at the box office. That’s a lot of money. And part of the reason for that enormous sum is because Whedon knows how to make likable characters in a movie. He blends humor, action and drama in the correct proportions and at the right moments. In other words, he’s not a hack like all of the DEI directors that have bungled the last several years of your franchise flops.
Now, granted he is demanding and sometimes slightly abusive toward the “talent.” But they’re getting paid millions of dollars to dress up in spandex and fool around in front of a green screen. The least they could do is take a little hectoring from a prima donna director to earn those millions. So anyway, my advice for Hollywood is to find the few creative talents out there; directors like Whedon and Christopher Nolan. And purchase the film rights to books that millions of people love. And don’t mess with the stories and characters. Put them faithfully on the big screen and then instead of trying to recreate success with endless sequels move onto another story! Did you know there is more than one book in the library? There are several.
I know it’s a radical departure. But it’s just so crazy it just might work!