Course Overload #11: "Season's Beatings"

Ah, Halloween. It’s a day to let go of your inhibitions. It’s the one day a year you can come to your classes dressed like samurai polar bear and not be sent to the psychiatrist. It’s a day of potentially poisoned treats and innovative razor apples, designed to be a nutritious snack and give you a nice, close shave at the very same time. Basically, it’s a day that most people wait for all year.

It’s also a day I’d like to forget for the rest of my natural life.

Last Halloween didn’t start out badly. For the past three weeks, I had been working on my costume non-stop, ignoring classes and calling in sick to work. I told them that I lost a leg in a pumpkin carving accident, but it would probably grow back by November 1.

I was determined to make the best costume in the history of the world. I wanted my grandchildren to look in their history books and see a picture of me, wearing The World’s Greatest Costume. If I played my cards right, I might even get a holiday or even a future building on campus named after me. I’d even settle for a bathroom stall – The Matt Frey Memorial Little Blue Stall.

By now I bet you’re wondering what this ultimate costume of mine was. So am I, actually. I don’t really know how to sew, iron on decals, or use any of that “glue” stuff, so I basically taped something together with a paper towel tube, a Pepsi box and some McDonald’s bags. I was going to be a robot, but I got tired of coloring everything silver about half way though the project and figured no one would notice that this particular robot was made from 57 percent post consumer waste. Ninjas are totally sweet, so I made a ninja mask out of my mother’s wedding dress. And who could I forget werewolves? Lucky for me I had a pair of hairy gloves to wear from the year before.

So there I was, standing outside of the Math-Science-Technology building bright and early on a beautiful Halloween morning. The parts of the Pepsi box that weren’t crushed from me sitting on them in the car were glistening in the sun, my ninja mask fluttered in the wind, and my hairy werewolf hands held onto my book bag. But I before I could get to my first class, a group of little kids from the elementary school came marching up. They were going to go trick-or-treating on the first floor of the MST building. At 9 a.m.

I was in such a good mood due to my super great costume and all, so I decided to say hello to the kids. “Happy Halloween!” I yelled with a smile.

A nearby Spider-man stopped and started at me for a moment. “What are you supposed to be? Some sort samurai polar bear?”

Another kid, dressed as Yoda, stopped to look at me too. “I don’t know what he’s supposed to be, but he looks stupid.”

“Stupid!?” I exclaimed, getting red in the face. “I’ll have you know that…”

Spider-man cut me off. “He’s right. You do look really dumb.”

“I think he’s supposed to be some sort of Robo-Ninja Werewolf,” Yoda suggested, using his light saber to scratch his back.

“Yeah, a STUPID Robo-Ninja Werewolf!” replied Spider-man.

By now a group of kids had formed and were watching the action. A little girl dressed as an angel stepped forward, turned to the crowd, and exclaimed, “Forget this trick-or-treat crap! Let’s beat him up and steal his books! We can sell them and buy lots of candy!”

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. All I can remember is being attacked by Yoda, a few Powerpuff girls, Batman, Harry Potter, and no less than three Spider-men, then waking up at midnight in a forest three miles way from the college. My beautiful costume lied about ten feet away, as tattered as my broken body. I’ve never cried harder in all my life, even that time that Santa Claus told me that my mother isn’t real.

I bet those kids were just jealous of my awesome costume, but its okay. I’ve already started designing a new one for next Halloween. This time, it’s going to have flame throwers, spinning knives and lasers. How’s that for child proof, eh?

Or, you know, I might just be a Power Ranger instead.

I need Dragonzord Power (and candy), NOW!

Turn Off the Lights and Turn On the Fear

So it’s getting close to Halloween and you’d like to get into the spirit of the holiday, but you’ve already dressed up like David Bowie and egged your neighbor’s house? I suppose you could go to some costume shindig or something, but I, Matt Frey, have spent countless hours of my life slaving over the following list of scary movies for you to see instead.

Social interaction is overrated anyway.

Friday the 13th: Even though Freddy Krueger is my hero, Jason Voorhees, the villain of the Friday the 13th series, still holds a special place in my black heart. Despite the disappointing Jason Goes to Hell and carnival of pain that is Jason X, the series is pretty entertaining and a great pick for some Halloween fun. However, the old Nintendo game is actually scarier than the movies. For one thing, the music freaks you out, and random Jason encounters leave you paranoid; you’re always terrified that he’ll jump out at you in the woods and kill your character. The other reason it’s so scary is that it’s one of the worst games ever made. It’s frustrating, ugly, and boring. And yet, I love it. Go figure.

Halloween: I know what you’re thinking, but despite the title, this film is NOT about Easter. No, it’s about the maniac killing machine Michael Myers. For some reason, Michael is very angry at the local teen baby sitter population, and he proceeds to off them one by one in creative, sometimes decorative ways. A classic; required Halloween time viewing.

Gigli: It was so scary, I cried for hours.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: This series has had its ups and downs, but as a whole, it’s a lot of fun. Nothing beats Johnny Depp being eaten by a demon bed, Freddy bleeding something that looks like Mountain Dew, random livestock running around in Freddy’s basement, and Nancy’s aloof, orange skinned mother. And that’s just in the first installment. If you’re looking for a crash course in Freddyology, see parts one, three, and seven.

The Others: Most of the fear in this movie stems not from brutal slayings, but from psychological terror. One of the people I saw it with four years ago grabbed my arm so hard during the scary parts that her fingerprints are still embedded in my skin. It was like a free tattoo, only it hurt more and it looks stupid. Thanks, Nicole Kidman!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Yeah, so, it’s not really a horror movie. But there are lots of people running around wearing Halloween costumes in it, and it has the word “horror” in the title, so I’m putting it here anyway. After watching this movie, even smiling will make your face ache.

Silent Hill: The movie is pretty good, but look: Get the original Playstation game. Now. It’s terrifying. The second one, for PS2, isn’t as scary, but the storyline is great for creeping you out the more you think about it. Both do a better job making you cry for your mommy than the recent film, but if a DVD player is all you have, don’t hesitate to see it.

Sleepaway Camp: Yeah, I hadn’t heard of this either until I picked it up on a whim. At first, I thought it was a cheap Friday the 13th rip-off, but it’s actually nothing like it. It keeps you guessing until the truly shocking final scene, which I sometimes re-watch whenever I need to experience severe psychological trauma for a paper or something.

Videodrome: This film raises some terrifying questions about control, the dark side of human sexuality, and if there’s anything good on TV. It’s probably not normal to hide a gun INSIDE one’s chest, but Videodrome somehow makes yanking out your own insides look glamorous.

Vampire Hunter D: This animated cult classic features a dark hero with a talking hand that eats dirt, an agile but wardrobe-impaired heroine, and Dracula exploding someone’s head. Nothing rocks harder than Dracula exploding someone’s head, and as such, it occurs only once in this movie. This, for those keeping score, is exactly one more time than every other movie ever. Vampire Hunter D a lot like Titanic, only with vampires and lots of killing. Fun for the whole family over 18.

After hearing about all these choice films, if you’re still thinking about going to some lame party and getting drunk this Halloween, consider this: Waking up next to one of these movies the following morning does not require you to awkwardly ask for its phone number. Happy Halloween!

Inside Caligari’s Cabinet: The Influences of a Silent Classic

By Matt Frey

When Carl Mayor and Hans Janowitz wrote the script for the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, they probably had little idea of the major social impact it would have in both their country and ours. The film, with its thinly-veiled social commentary and odd, fairytale scenery, was released amidst a firestorm of both controversy and critical praise. When the dust of debate had finally settled, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari emerged as one of the most influential films of all time.

What had started as a simple silent movie had, quite literally, changed the course of horror films.

In 1921, a group of more than 2000 protesters descended on The Miller’s Theatre in Los Angeles. From noon to 8:30 p.m., the protesters demonstrated against The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the theater’s newest offering (Skal 37). They protested not because of the content of the film, but because of the film’s German origins. Many ex-soldiers were horrified that Americans would pay to see anything made in Germany, after the horrors of the first Great War that had ended just recently. (The parallels situation and the current conflict in Middle East are both obvious and beyond the aim of this work.)

Ironically, the film carried a potent anti-war sentiment in its stylistic use of lighting, its twisted, surreal imagery and sets, and its strange, metaphorical characters (Skal 41). Mayor and Janowitz’s script villainized the German government and blamed it for pulling the German people headlong into World War I. In the film, Cesare, a zombie-like man with piercing eyes, responds only to Dr. Caligari’s heinous commands to creep into people’s homes and kill them in the middle of the night. Cesare represents the German people, forced by a corrupt government – personified by Dr. Calagari – to murder anyone who gets in their way.

Had the protesters actually seen the film, they might have reversed their position; however, xenophobic postwar sentiment made that a virtual impossibility. But while the veterans of the Great War demonstrated against the film, many critics proclaimed Caligari a cinematic masterpiece in one way or another. “The musical setting for the production is superb,” commented one critic (Skal 44). The same reviewer was pleased with the film’s use of tinting and color. Variety magazine was impressed, but feared the film’s subject matter would hinder it, saying “it may catch the popular fancy, but it is morbid” (Skal 44). But perhaps the greatest compliment came from the film magazine Shadowland when it said that Caligari “has the authentic thrills and shocks of art” (Skal 46).

Alas, despite modest critical acclaim and public interest, the protesters eventually got their way. The Miller Theatre purged The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from their screen (Skal 46).

There is no doubt that Variety was correct in saying that Caligari is “morbid,” but it was certainly wrong in thinking that the film’s grim subject matter would repel audiences. As Tod Browning proved time and time again with his ghoulish circus acts, humanity is attracted to the macabre (Skal 25). Later, with films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera and Freaks, as well as the aid of silent film star Lon Chaney, Browning helped to further the horror genre that Caligari effectively started (Skal 67). Indeed, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first true horror film as measured by today’s standards.

German promotional posters for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari declared “Du Musst Caligari Werden” – “You Will Become Caligari” (Skal 44). Little did anyone know how true that statement would become; Caligari’s influence extended far beyond films of the time. For example, comparisons between the shambling somnambulist Cesare and the 1931 film version of Frankenstein’s monster are both unavoidable and uncanny. The two monsters are tall and dark, and both move in strikingly similar ways. Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein film went on to invade many facets of American culture.

Although the idea of a single mass murderer sneaking into peoples’ bedrooms and slaughtering them in their sleep is nothing new, Caligari was an early example of this idea on celluloid – Cesare brought a face to the age old fear that has been recycled in countless films afterwards. The somnambulist, it seems, was a prototype for the horror cliché of the single, inhuman killing machine. John Carpenter’s Halloween gives us what is essentially the somnambulist in a white, almost featureless mask. Unspeaking and unfeeling, a killer named Michael Myers slays the teenage population of a small rural community one by one. Although Carpenter probably wasn’t thinking of the somnambulist when he created “The Shape” (as Myers is referred to in the film’s closing credits), the killer certainly matches Cesare’s archetype. Another example of this phenomenon is Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series. In the masked murder’s 2003 film, Freddy vs. Jason, Voorhees appears in his victim’s bedroom and viciously stabs him to death, finally snapping him in half as a brutal exclamation mark for his murderous sentence. Despite the wanton gore found in the Freddy vs. Jason scene, the basic elements of the Cesare archetype were all present. Give a somnambulist a hockey mask and you’ve got Jason Voorhees. Take it away, and you’ve got Caligari.

The reoccurring elements of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are not limited to film alone – the image of the lone madman his been consistently burned into society’s psyche through many different media outlets. In Capcom’s Resident Evil 3, a 1999 video game for Sony’s Playstation, Sega’s Dreamcast and later, Nintendo’s GameCube, the Ceasre-like creature Nemesis stalks the player throughout the game, consistantly bursting into whatever temporary haven he or she thinks they have found.

The greatest debt owed to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, however, is for catapulting horror films into the American mainstream. Without Caligari, horror films would likely exist today, yet not nearly in the same way. Perhaps Nosferatu, released in America a short time later, would have been able to do what Caligari did. Yet, would we still have Michael Myers? Would we still have Jason Voorhees or even Freddy Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame? Possibly. But it’s an awfully long trip from Max Schreck’s wily vampire to John Carpenter’s elusive killing machine.

No one knew it at the time, but the German promotional poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari really did predict our future. As a society, we HAVE become Caligari. So much so, in fact, that we no longer realize what’s happened. It is said that art imitates life, but art also imitates other art. Movies, books, video games and more have borrowed parts of the Mayor and Janowitz’s film for so long, the original lines of ownership have blurred beyond recognition.

We have indeed become Caligari, but more importantly, Caligari has become us.


Work Cited

Skal, David J. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. New York: Faber and Faber, 1993.