As part of a month long celebration of all things scary, SE&L will use its regular Monday/Thursday commentary pieces as a platform to discuss a few of horror’s most influential and important filmmakers. This time around, the biology-based terror of David Cronenberg, Canada’s premier horror maestro.

For many, sex and sexuality is an issue best left private. It involves so many idiosyncratic and deeply personal aspects that it can cause considerable individual angst. But in the mind of Canadian macabre maestro David Cronenberg, the physical act of intercourse, and the ancillary essentials that make up eros, can be more terrifying than any monster, more horrific than any visit from a violent slasher. It all has to do with the body – as a temple and temptation, a place easily violated and poisoned by facets from without and within. In a career that has spanned three decades, several sensational films, and a genre-defying approach to narrative, Cronenberg has managed to locate the fear inside the most fundamental aspect of existence – life itself – and as a result he created a canon where being human is the most potentially precarious thing a person can do.

For some, he is a difficult auteur. His work is overloaded with ideas, plagued by invention that both amplifies and occasionally addles, his efforts. Because of his background – Cronenberg studied both science and literature in college, taking a degree in the latter from the University of Toronto before dabbling in film – his themes usually clash, creating cinematic chaos before coming together at the end. After several strange and unique independent efforts (and more than a couple of TV films for Canadian broadcasting) in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, Cronenberg was desperate to explore the unnatural ideas rolling around in his head. He finally got the chance in 1975 with Shivers (released in the US and better known as They Came From Within).

With a narrative that would come to exemplify much of the director’s works – a parasite overruns an apartment building, turning the residents into lust-crazed maniacs whose goal is to infect each other – Shivers started Cronenberg’s career long march toward discovering the mysteries of sex. Acknowledging that for many, the physical act of love (or without emotion, pure carnal copulation) can be a daunting, even devastating act, the director designed his cinema to symbolize such an internal struggle via brash external means. In the case of Shivers, it was the loss of intimacy as represented by a small, squishy slug that brings on uncontrolled desire. Seen by many today as an AIDS metaphor as well as a comment on the disease spreading revolution that marked most of the Me Decade, the movie was an auspicious start to a soon to be impressive career. 

Next up was Rabid, which took the whole pornography of fear (and visa versa) element one step further by featuring real life adult film star Marilyn Chambers in the lead role. She played a woman whose botched plastic surgery leads to an insatiable desire for blood, and a small penis-like appendage jutting from her armpit. Never one to shy away from the more graphic aspects of imagery, many fright fans were repulsed by the decidedly disturbing nature of Cronenberg’s visuals. Still, Rabid was well received and after the one-off car cult action pic Fast Company, Cronenberg was back in biological territory. Using children as the source of all evil, he fashioned The Brood. Noted for taking the concept of psychosomatic illnesses to an all new, literary level, the director dissected birth, and the legacy of procreation, and inserted them into the closest thing to a condemnation of offspring this side of David Lynch’s Eraserhead.

Though he was now a considered cult filmmaker, Cronenberg had yet to matter to the mainstream. All of that would change with his next effort, 1980’s Scanners. Completing a kind of queer quadrilogy that followed terror from creation, to birth, to a kind of mutated maturity, the filmmaker established the perfect way of meshing physicality with fear, while also tapping into areas revolving around power and purpose. In this popular hit (which used the explosion of a man’s head from the film’s first act as a decided gore selling point), two adult ‘scanners’ battle for a kind of metaphysical supremacy, one arguing that the telekinetic skills he was genetically engineered with are a curse. The other, of course, sees nothing but superiority. Thanks to the bloodletting and special effects which accented Cronenberg’s complex screenplay, what could have been a geek show turned into a brave, bravura statement.

But he wasn’t done manipulating both mind and body. In his minor masterpiece Videodrome, Cronenberg considered the meddlesome effects of the media on human nature, and personal physicality, all with devastating results. Predating many of the symptoms post-modern punditry would imply were destroying the human race (TV, violence, sex, cults, religion) the director melded technology, terror and temptation to produce a kind of arch acid flashback, compete with living televisions, torso vaginas, and guns that were an actual extension of one’s anatomy. Some consider the last act where star James Woods has become a bio-sexual assassin (all thanks to a brainwashing signal implanted in a pirate satellite transmission) to be a meandering mess that looses much of what Cronenberg was commenting on. While definitely gruesome, the finale is a flawless wrap up to a story that’s surrealism sets up all the symbolism to come.

At this point, Cronenberg had arrived and was presented with his choice of projects. Scanners was a hit, and Videodrome proved he could match wits with even the wildest industry innovators. His next step threw the fanbase a substantial cinematic curve when he agreed to film an adaptation of Stephen King’s paranormal political thriller The Dead Zone. Antithetical to his whole corporeal creep show concepts, he still delivered a searing socio-political drama that resonates as realistically today as it did three decades before. It so impressed the individuals holding the option for a remake of the ‘50s insect schlock The Fly that Cronenberg was given the job of bringing the troubled project to the screen. Perhaps the perfect match of material and maker, the resulting effort would become one of horror cinema’s greatest achievements.

The Fly functions on many magnificent levels – love story, splatterfest, acting tutorial, monster movie – that to try and narrow its success to one or the other is futile. With a remarkable Jeff Goldblum giving life to one of the most difficult roles in all of fright filmmaking (man turning into a creature) and effects that added emphasis to the horror this human was experiencing, the sci-fi aspects of the narrative function perfectly as an analogy to how love impacts and changes a person. Before his relationship with Veronica, Goldblum’s character Seth Brundle was an insular and introverted man. Passion, and physical love transform the sullen scientist into a man eager to explore the possibilities of the world. Sadly one said adventure involved his teleportation device, an errant insect, and a gradual transformation into something quite grotesque.

An unquestionable achievement, Cronenberg’s creation touched a substantial genre nerve. Fright fans found it almost impossible to ignore the depth of emotion that existed between the characters, and saw the ending, a Grand Guignol spectacle of violence and loss, as one of Cronenberg’s most powerful. Few thought he could do better, but again, he baffled his devotees by delivering another amazing movie, the dualistic thriller Dead Ringers. It was a narrative that brought all his obsessions full circle. More psychological than physiological and using the almost telepathic connection between twins to tell a tale of obsession and possession, the narrative seemed like a response to all the critics who commented on the director’s own fascination with the human body and all its amniotic aspects.

At this point, Cronenberg could have merely coasted. Numerous projects came his way, many of which were Hollywood’s way of “rewarding” him for years of outsider excellence. But instead of bowing to blockbuster pressures, the filmmaker followed his heart, and attempted the near impossible – an adaptation of William Burrough’s notorious novel Naked Lunch. Instead of coming to terms with the demented descriptions in the author’s stream of consciousness screed of drugs and their use/abuse, Cronenberg fused a fictional Burroughs’ biopic with an interpretation of how such haunting, harrowing passages were prepared, and created a kind of mental Molotov cocktail. Fans hoping for a quixotic slice of pure Burroughs felt betrayed. Others argued that there were vast, varied differences between Croneberg’s Lunch and the ersatz story on the page. While celebrated today, Naked Lunch was lamented at the time of its initial release, considered disappointing in both cinematic and literary camps. 

It didn’t stop the auteur from continuing to court controversy. He brought the Broadway hit M. Butterfly to the silver screen, amplifying the homosexual angle of an already scandalous story of a French diplomat who fell in love and lived with an Asian transvestite. Next, he pushed the acceptability envelope even further by retrofitting J. G. Ballard’s brave book, Crash to fit his filmmaking ideals. So scandalous that it barely got released, the story of sexual deviants who get physical thrills from accident scenes and injury, put a preemptive halt to the director’s ascent into universal adoration. Arguably one of his best films, Crash can also be seen as penance for all the peculiarity Cronenberg placed upon his audiences.

Instead of a retreat, however, the filmmaker merely pressed on. His next big screen effort, eXistenZ was a weird, wooly trip into virtual reality, and proved a professional disappointment. Viewers apparently weren’t ready to see a motion picture mindfuck that actually was mindfucking itself. Then came the criminally underrated Spider with Ralph Fiennes delivering a devastating turn as a mentally unhinged man whose past and present seem to coexist simultaneously. In 2005, Cronenberg stunned everyone, from film critic to fervent supporter, with his Oscar caliber comment on the brutal nature of the human race, A History of Violence.

For a filmmaker used to accolades, the love this masterpiece received was outrageous. Nominated for numerous awards, and high on almost all film critic’s year end ‘best of’ lists, the story of small town America shaken by murder, and mistrust violates almost every single aspect of the filmmaker’s venereal style. Gone are the multiple references to the human form – in there place are stellar statements about the nature of evil, and how a loved one can hide their true self from even those they profess to care about. In fact, many reviewers responded favorably to the film for the very reason that Cronenberg appeared to be giving up his biological fascinations once and for all.

In fact, when looking at his upcoming projects (including a comedy -??? – and another graphic novel adaptation ala Violence) it does indeed look like he has abandoned his genre roots for good. While it wouldn’t be surprising if he never made another horror movie, fans of the creature feature art form would have a real reason to be upset. When he was part of post-modern macabre’s making, there was no one better than this crafty Canadian. The cinematic category surely misses his cruel, considered tone as well as his outstanding ‘body’ of work. 

Everybody’s getting in on banning trans fats: New York City, Chicago, Disney, Pepsi, Wendy’s. But why impose a ban when you could generate some revenue with a tax?

On his and fellow conservative Richard Posner’s blog, (which is totally bizarre from a rhetorical point of view; it seems as though it were written by Spock), Gary Becker, an economist famous for treating human beings as a commodity (human capital), and performing economic analyses on drug addiction (it’s rational) and domestic life (it’s a factory), mulled over the implications of a tax on fat, which would be a less paternalistic way of ridding the world of trans fats (a.k.a. hyrdogenated oils) that clog arteries and cause obesity. (Some health officials go so far to compare hydrogenated oils to the threat posed by lead paint, but I think I’d feel substantially more comfortable with children eating doughnuts than paint chips.) Becker is skeptical that the danger outweighs the social pleasure afforded by hamburger sandwiches and french-fried potatoes, and suspects that obesity is more attributable to kids’ propensity for such “sedentary activities” as “listening to music on iPods and other devices.” Kids spend too much time in front of computers, he suggests, and we wouldn’t want to start imposing Pigovian taxes on Internet usage, would we? This seems like a red herring to me—to find something more appealing to substitute for fat in order to make the argument against social engineering through taxes seem more salient. The same goes for when Becker, evoking the idea that obese citizens may stress the publically-financed health care system and should therefore be taxed to compensate for that (a la one of the rationales for cigarette taxes), shifts the subject to health-care savings accounts and consumer-driven health care, the preferred conservative nostrums for America’s healh care crisis.

Posner, in his reply to Becker, seems more cogent on the subject. He raises the point that obesity is correlated with poverty, so a fat tax would likely be regressive and would possibly fail to achieve its intended effect.

Indeed, high-caloric “junk food” might conceivably though improbably turn out to be the first real-world example of a “Giffen good,” a good the demand for which rises when the price rises because the income effect dominates the substitution effect. A heavy tax on high-caloric food might so reduce the disposable income of the poor that they substituted such food for healthful food, since fatty foods tend to be very cheap and satisfying, and often nutritious as well.

But his main contention is that the rationale for a fat tax relies on the belief that people who eat fatty food are making informed rational choices and revelaing a preference for Ho-Hos and Doritos over broccoli. Posner, somewhat surprisingly, is willing to throw rational choice out the window here:

I don’t think the fact that obesity is correlated with poverty is due entirely to the fact that fatty foods tend to be cheap as well as tasty and satisfying. I suspect that many of the people who become obese as a result of what they eat do not understand how, for example, something as innocuous as a soft drink can produce obesity. I also suspect that producers of soft drinks and other fatty foods are ingenious in setting biological traps—designing foods that trigger intense pleasure reactions caused by brain structures formed in our ancestral environment (the prehistoric environment in which human beings attained approximately their current biological structure), when a taste for fatty foods had significant survival value.

Because of these biological traps, and the imperviousness of poor neighborhoods to nutrition education, Posner is willing to consider a ban of deceptively innocuous products like soft drinks: “And while generally parents know better than government what is good for their children, many parents who permit their children to drink soft drinks do not.”

As much as I don’t think the government should be telling people what they can and can’t eat, it’s hard to see the harm in disincentivizing food that makes for fat children. But the problem seems larger than the junk-food industry, which arises in response to generalized time crunch and the devaluation of time spent sharing a meal. I don’t think the poor are necessarily ignorant about the ill effects of junk food, but they don’t have the time to put into policing these questions or pursuing the frequently labor-intensive alternatives. We have developed a food infrastructure premised on the idea of delivering filling calories quickly to serve the need for convenience rather than nutrition. What may be needed is a proposal that could provide incentives for convenience, which is almost impossible to imagine, seeing how convenience virtually has become the definition of incentive.

Though his company is one of the mega-media company pressuring the FCC to loosen its rules about how huge media companies can get, my hat’s off to Viacom/CBS boss Sumner Redstone for telling the same FCC what a bunch of cultural fascists they really are.  In this Hollywood Reporter story, he lets ‘em have it with both barrels. “If the public is not happy with a particular program, then they won’t watch it, and it will go off air.  Government censorship—and by this I mean imposing any kind of burden or penalty on those who publish protected speech—circumvents this process… Give the government the tools to punish those it doesn’t like or silence what it doesn’t want to hear, and you undermine democracy. Give people the tools to choose what they see and hear, and you enhance democracy.”  Granted that part of this grumbling comes from the increased fines that the Congress/Prez just signed into law but the sentiment’s still the right one.

In the music business, they are noted as artists only capable of a single significant Billboard blip. Yet in filmmaking, no matter the genre, they are barely even recognized. For some strange reason, the motion picture industry doesn’t typically categorize a moviemaker based on only one noteworthy hit or miss. Certainly there is an atmosphere of appreciation based solely on a writer or director’s last box office receipts, but that has more to do with finance and business than it does with quality or overall excellence. Many distinguished auteurs have had their fair share of commercial disappointments and yet consistently retain their timeless status when real critical deliberation is given to their efforts.

But when it comes to horror, all bets are off. So iconic in its facets that it more or less supercedes all other categorical considerations, the movie macabre is actually a very specialized motion picture form. Many have tried it, and very few have truly succeeded. This is especially true for those craftsmen who view their talent as transcending all manner of product pigeonholing. There is also a senseless, snobbish quality involved, with many directors feeling that, as an art form, the fright film is beneath them. While it could be a case of understanding their own limits, the truth is that terror has always been an unappreciated style of cinema, and this high class, haughty notion has penetrated even the most mediocre moviemaker’s mindset.

Still, some of the biggest names in the business have tried. A few have even met with massive success. But when you look more closely at the classics, the horror films that consistently make the Top 10 lists, you see that a few represent the one and only ‘hit’ that these paranormal pretenders to the throne ever created. Duplicating the criteria used when musicians are involved, SE&L has decided to celebrate those craftsmen who found a way to make their sole scary movie attempt effective. Naturally, there are some caveats. A director listed may have indeed made more than one horror film - William Friedkin also attempted the bad babysitter/tree demon debacle entitled The Guardian, while Clive Barker has made the nauseating Nightbreed and limp Lords of Illusion - and, as a matter of fact, can even claim a second, almost as substantive effort and still avoid elimination. The only other element worth pondering is the movie’s viability as a creepshow archetype. Many may argue over the titles chosen, but it’s clear that when viewed in light of the two prerequisites mentioned, these five films stand out as perfect examples of horror’s ‘one hit wonders’:

William Friedkin – The Exorcist (1973)

Without question, one of the art form’s most gratifying masterpieces as well as one of the greatest movies ever made. As much about the universal battle between good and evil as it is an unique allegory centering on the early ‘70s generation gap between parents and children, this flawless fright film would end up being Friedkin’s one and only genre success (the goofy Guardian just doesn’t count). The directorial decision to keep everything as realistic as possible, along with the idea of maintaining the theological struggle at the center of William Peter Blatty’s bestselling novel gave the Exorcist its horrific heft and its philosophical depth. But it was the high level of skill and invention from all involved in the production that also turned what could have been a slapdash Satanic farce into a truly terrifying experience. Nearly as effective today as it was 34 years ago, Friedkin could skip the scary movie category from now on and still be considered one of its true masters. The Exorcist is just that good.

Clive Barker – Hellraiser (1981)

Similar to Friedkin’s masterpiece in its use of a standard dramatic device – in this case, the concept of adultery – as a foundation for supernatural fear, Clive Barker’s first feature film as a director is also unquestionably his best. Thanks to a clever combination of recognizable types (the unhappy wife, the clueless, cuckolded husband, the desperate daughter caught in the middle) and the creation of ‘80s cinema’s most menacing fear icons, the Cenobites, Barker pushed the limits of both the emotional and the eerie with this remarkably insightful movie. Many fail to see the sinister subtext involved – a near incestual coupling between a dead brother-in-law and a cheating spouse who will do anything, even KILL, to keep her corpse-like lover alive. With enough gore to satisfy the needs of even the most brazen blood hound, and an intellectualized approach to pain and suffering that few fright films can claim, Hellraiser deserves its place as a minor masterpiece. Too bad Barker never did better. His terrific potential shines through in every grue-covered frame.

Danny Boyle – 28 Days Later (2002)

Zombies. To borrow a line from The Simpsons, the undead are the Washington Generals of the genre film. Whenever a filmmaker, young or old, can’t figure out how to make with the monsters, they fall back on these flesh-eaters and hope for the horrifying best. While the fast-movie maniacs at the center of this story are not true cannibal corpses, Boyle borrows liberally from the overdone filmic formula to radically reinvent the seemingly stagnant social commentary. Viewing Britain as a bastion of brainless reactionaries lashing out at anything that dares disturb their self-satisfying ‘sleep’, Boyle twists the conventions of terror to show just how bleak the human spirit can become when wrapped in a blanket of pure power and/or biologically altered rage. Thanks to his inventive camerawork – this is cutting edge digital moviemaking at its very best – and a script that doesn’t shy away from the scares, what at first seemed like your standard Romero riff actually signaled a rebirth of the entire living dead ideal. 

Tim Burton – Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Though he’s constantly considered a major part of the fear arena, Goth god Tim Burton has actually only made one full blown horror movie in his 20 year career, and it’s this amazing homage to the high style Hammer films of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Using the Washington Irving classic as a jumping off point, and a sensational cast loaded with British and American iconoclasts – including Christopher Walken, Johnny Depp, and Michael Gambon – Burton braved the scorn of the purists by making his narrative more about the birth of criminal investigation than a faithful adaptation of the folklore favorite. Tossing in references to many of the sinister visuals from motion pictures past, as well as his own unique brand of Edward Gorey-inspired imagery, Burton gave fright fans everything they could possible want, including lots of bloody decapitations. While this eccentric director’s oeuvre has always contained nods to elements both supernatural and paranormal, this inventive and evocative effort stands as one of Burton’s best.

Stanley Kubrick – The Shining (1980)

In 1968, this legendary filmmaker delivered what he considered to be the first ‘serious’ science fiction film that the otherwise slipshod genre had ever seen. Not only did the resulting epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, transform the entire cinematic category but it quickly became one of the art form’s greatest triumphs. Obviously hoping to do the same for the fright flick, Kubrick took Stephen King’s beloved third novel, stripped it of all its narrative nuances, and streamlined the story into a fright fable about fate and family. Instead of a classic, it became one of the auteur’s most argued over efforts. Some find it an excellent example of technical terror – atmosphere matched with storytelling and characterization to suggest that evil has an eternal, lasting legacy. Others just found it a slow, somber fright flick. Even with it’s elegant, eerie Steadi-cam work, the occasional bursts of over the top acting histrionics from lead Jack Nicholson, and a single definitive scare sequence involving something malevolent hiding out in Room 237, a clear consensus couldn’t be reached. While the verdict is still out for most die-hard fright fans, The Shining still stands as Kubrick’s only attempt at a classic creature feature.

Two great articles that I highly recommend:

- Fight For Newspapers: “Cut back on the quality of a newspaper in order to show an impressive short-term return for the market’s sake, and the slide toward disaster has begun. Readers will notice and begin drifting away, and advertisers will soon follow. It won’t be long before the vultures are circling.”

- Digital Rights In Question As Business Model: required reading for any major label (not to mention Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).  Whether they finally get the point is another matter.