The Howling
[Joe Dante, 1981]:
Functions,
primarily, as a homage to werewolf movies.
The use of on-screen quotations from The Wolf Man (1941) for instance
not only provide narrative exposition but also establishes the world of the
film as being self-aware and conscious of the depictions of 'lycanthropy' in
popular culture. The iconography of the
film is therefore coloured by these references, where allusions to the myths
and legends propagated by Universal or the Hammer Films studio - as well as
in-jokes and suggestions of certain scenes - create an ironic, almost satirical
inflection, typical of Dante's post-Godard/pre-Tarantino approach to genre
deconstruction. Although set
predominantly in northern California, the encroaching mists and the eerie light
of the forest seem to evoke the European setting of films like Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man (1943), The Curse of the Werewolf (1960) and the Paul Naschy
starring Mark of the Wolfman (1968).
Likewise, the development of the characters, their gradual metamorphosis
into the specific types - hero and
heroine, villain and victim, etc - is consistent with the film's greater
acknowledgement of the history of its genre; the rules of the game.
However,
there is much more to the film than a simple play of references. The script, adapted by John Sayles, uses the
requirements of the genre - the isolated location, the psychology of the beast
within - to create a sly satire on the cult of psychoanalysis. The film's setting, the "colony" -
a riff on the mid-to-late '70s phenomenon of bourgeois health clubs or
self-help organisations that could function almost as spiritual new age 'retreats'
- is used to lampoon the very conservative idea of repression, both emotional and psychological, as it pertains not only
to the subversion of the werewolf mythology, but also to the often
transgressive spirit of horror films in general. There is another element to The Howling that
is possibly even more remarkable, in which the nature of images, or the
manipulation of images, is suggested by the continual use of distorted newsreel
footage, television broadcasts or video display monitors. This emphasis on the image - or the integrity
of it - sets up the film's final act; a disorienting set-piece intended to
question - with a great deal of humour - the audience's ability to discern
between fantasy and reality. The idea
that seeing is no longer believing for an audience numbed by the fictions of Hollywood,
or the violence of the mass-media.
A History of
Violence [David Cronenberg, 2005]:
Cronenberg
continues to expand and develop the themes of his oeuvre. Still as focused on the fragilities and the
limitations of the human body, as in films like Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979)
and The Fly (1986), but now pushing away from science-fiction, into reality, or
a heightened reality, through the influence of Dead Ringers (1988), Naked Lunch
(1991) and Crash (1996). Films in which
the damage inflicted by these characters creates a wound that is both emotional
as well as physical; where the recognisable 'body horror' transmutations of
those earlier works continue to progress; moving away from the external, the purely physical, to the internal, the
psychological. Although not initially an
assignment for Cronenberg, this adaptation of a graphic novel by John Wagner
and Vince Locke, scripted by Josh Olson, covers much of the same territory as
the more recognisable "Cronenbergian" projects, such as those
aforementioned. Specifically, the idea
of identity; the way experiences shape a character's personality; that
distinction between the inner and outer self.
More than
anything, the film is a supposition on the transformative nature of violence,
both from the perspective of those who inflict it - either knowingly, or in
self-defence - or those who are a witness to it. The effect that this violence has - both on
the central character and on those closest to him - is devastating;
representing a psychological mutation that is as harrowing and perplexing in
its nature as the potentially physical mutations of the character Max Renn in
the masterpiece Videodrome (1983). In
this sense, the film, like most by Cronenberg, is an update of the Jekyll and
Hyde mythology, where the metamorphosis of the central character goes back to 'the
shape of rage' as defined by Oliver Reed's antagonist Dr. Hal Raglan in The
Brood; that idea of the mind manipulating the body, turning it against itself,
creating something that exists between
the physical, between the
psychological. The final scene, which
has the family reunited, but still torn, is offset by the disquieting
implication that the man returning to this house, to this domestic scene, is
not the same man that originally left.
