Book Review: WILLOW Novelization (1988)

Since Disney+ is putting out a next-generation sequel to the 1988 fantasy classic Willow, the film podcast Myopia Movies recorded an episode that came out alongside it. I enjoyed the movie, but there were a number of flaws, most notably the lack of explanation and worldbuilding. Given how the movie was intended for children and as-is the host's kindergartner was losing interest toward the end, I figured the novelization would be a big improvement. Fortunately it is available for purchase on Amazon, so I decided to give it a spin.

The Plot

In a faraway land, a prophecy predicts that a child will be born who will overthrow the evil Queen Bavmorda. To that end, Bavmorda, imprisons all late-stage pregnant women and has their child inspected after birth to see if they bear the prophesied mark--and one day the newborn Elora Danan does. A sympathetic midwife smuggles the child out and Bavmorda dispatches her grim General Kael and warlike daughter Sorsha to pursue the child.

But the child falls into the hands of gnomish farmer and family man Willow Ulfgood, who aspires to do magic. Assigned by the gnome village elders to find a human to look after said child, Willow soon encounters the rogue Madmartigan and the transformed sorceress Fin Raziel. Soon they're all allies on a quest to overthrow Bavmorda, with some surprising twists and turns along the way.

(The novelization appears to be based on an earlier draft of the screenplay and includes content cut from the actual film.)

The Good

*The novel beefs up the characterization of Willow himself and emphasizes the danger his quest to protect baby Elora puts him in besides the obvious problem of Bavmorda's murderous soldiers. Basically he's been pursuing his dreams of becoming a wizard to the detriment of working on his farm and owes the bullying village prefect Burglekutt money. Friendly neighbors have had to give him seed for this year's crop and he's apparently one payment away from foreclosure. Although the situation is largely his own fault, if his children had never found the baby he could have easily turned his situation around--he gets a lot of plowing done in a single day.

*Bavmorda, Fin Raziel, and their Fae mentor Charlindea get a lot more back-story and characterization than in the film. In the movie, Bavmorda is basically a live-action version of Snow White's Evil Queen, Fin is a rival she's transformed, and it's not even clear what exactly Charlindea even *is*--on the podcast, I refer to her at one point as the "non-union Mexican equivalent" of Galadriel.

*A monster cut from the film and a monster that appears later in the film have reasons for being there that further build Bavmorda's character. Not only is she a powerful sorceress, but she's also a planner who has fail-safes for her various schemes.

*Burglekutt isn't just an obnoxious small-town moneylender...he's also a prefect in the local government and owns the town's sole seed shop. Willow is not the only person he antagonizes either. If it weren't for his physical cowardice and being completely out of shape physically, he could have been a PG version of small-town gangster Wesley from the Patrick Swayze movie Road House.

*The novel explains some stuff that, in the film alone, don't make a whole lot of sense. For example, the midwife escapes the sinister Nockmaar Castle with the infant Elora by hiding out in some secret passages she knew about (and apparently the guards didn't) until Bavmorda's pursuers are far away before setting off into the wilderness. And once away, she's assisted by people opposed to Bavmorda's regime and even friendly animals. This explains why Elora is a newborn at the beginning of the film but looks significantly older by the time the midwife sets her adrift on the river to save her from the Death Dogs...they've actually been on the run for months. A character who gets captured by the heroes in the film because they insist on being the first one to search a room displays a bit more common sense and sends minions in first.

*The war depicted in the film is also explained in more detail. Bavmorda, having usurped her late husband, rules all the territories he did, and has been making war on the nearby kingdom of Galladoorn. The various rebels, armies, etc. we see in the film are survivors of Galladoorn's army, people within Nockmaar opposed to Bavmorda's rule, etc. The film doesn't really explain the politics of the situation very much or very well.

*There's a scene where we see Nockmaar's army in battle in large numbers (as opposed to Kael and Sorsha's death squad that numbers about fifty people at most) that's pretty cool.

The Bad

*The prose is not very descriptive and doesn't move very quickly until about halfway through the book. There's a lot of telling rather than showing.

*Some of the worldbuilding and back-story is rather silly. Before Bavmorda, apparently all living things in the world lived in harmony and several times characters are assisted by friendly animals. Yes, I know this is a novelization of a children's film and friendly animals are a fairy-tale staple, but still. Although I criticized the movie for oversimplifying matters, the more complex attempts at worldbuilding and back-story raise more questions than they answer. The Willow Blu-Ray has an interview with Ron Howard in which he explains how a whole subplot involving Sorsha's father--the previous king at Tir Asleen and Bavmorda's husband--was ordered cut by the studio and frankly the movie version is better than what's in the novelization. 

(This fan-fic keeps Sorsha's dad dead like the movie at least strongly implies and explains the whole situation better than either the novelization or the film, but beware spoilers.)

Elora's role in the novel is also needlessly complex--some commenter on TVTropes states that she causes Bavmorda's downfall in the film, not by anything she does, but the actions she inspires others to undertake. There's also a lot of Chekov's Guns that aren't fired--worldbuilding that doesn't really tie in with the immediate plot but mostly serves to add pages.

*The way Bavmorda's and Madmartigan's back-stories are explained feature gigantic info-dumps that are basically characters telling stories around the campfire. This is especially the case with Madmartigan. Yes, the back-stories are interesting, but they go on for far too long and are kind of clunky.

*Some stuff from the movie gets left out, like scenes in Nockmaar Castle where Bavmorda interacts with Sorsha and Kael. This would explain the unhealthy family dynamic between Sorsha and her belittling, affection-withholding mother (and why a character's romantic speech, drug-induced though it may be, has such an effect on her) and show the evil kingdom's political dysfunction. Sorsha's first film meeting with the heroes that sets up a lot of stuff that happens later is also left out. Although Willow and Madmartigan benefit from the expanded characterization in the novel, Sorsha (to a point) and especially Kael lose out.

The Verdict

A library read, unless you can get it super-cheap somewhere. Only worth reading once. 6.0 out of 10.

Movie Review: WILLOW (1988)

On the 100th episode of the Blasters and Blades podcast, I briefly discussed the movie Willow with the hosts. I referred to the movie as being "before my time" (it turns out I was actually around four years old, but at that point I was mostly interested in cartoons), much to the slightly-older host's annoyance. At the time I had not seen it, but lo and behold some time later, the film podcast Myopia Movies added it to the Season Nine lineup. So not long after DragonCon 2022, I watched it for the podcast...

Here's the link to the podcast. And now for the review...

The Plot

In a faraway land, a prophecy predicts that a child will be born who will overthrow the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsha). To that end, Bavmorda, imprisons all late-stage pregnant women and has their child inspected after birth to see if they bear the prophesied mark--and one day the newborn Elora Danan (twins Kate and Ruth Greenfield) does. A sympathetic midwife smuggles the child out and Bavmorda dispatches her grim General Kael (Pat Roach) and warlike daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) to pursue the child.

But the child falls into the hands of the farmer and family man Willow Ulfgood (Warwick Davis), who aspires to do magic. Assigned by the village elders to find a human to look after said child, Willow soon encounters the rogue Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and the transformed sorceress Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes). Soon they're all allies on a quest to overthrow Bavmorda, with some surprising twists and turns along the way.

The Good

*For starters, Willow and his kindred are a very specific fantasy race--they're gnomes. This is the first and so far only time I've seen gnomes in an actual film. For the scenes in the gnome village it looks like Lucasfilm hired every dwarf actor in Hollywood--every adult seems to have some form of dwarfism and there are a lot of them who can play musical instruments, fight with weapons, etc. The only ordinary-sized people seem to be the children. This is a good thing on multiple levels--it's more authentic and real-looking and it provides employment for people who often live rather difficult lives. And their characterizations are varied--the gnome village has an obnoxious moneylender who covets Willow's land, there are full-time soldiers (who are actually fairly skilled--on Twitter I called them "the littlest pikemen"), and even a wizard. We even see their form of government--they seem to have a town council and direct democracy on certain major issues. These aren't a bunch of circus performers, but an actual complex society.

*Also, this is a world where there are non-human fantasy races in addition to ordinary people. In a world of only Homo sapiens sapiens who often look different, practice different religions, etc. we're often bigoted enough toward each other. Willow and the other gnomes get repeatedly referred to as "pecks" (a reference to a unit of measurement, approximately 12-14 pounds) even by people who are supposed to be heroic. It's a major sign of a character's moral growth that this person starts referring to them by how they call themselves (Nalwyn) rather than "peck."

*The film also has a good cast. I liked all three of the main trio--Davis, Kilmer, and Whalley.

*The movie is fast-moving and entertaining, albeit a bit on the cheesy side.

The Bad

*Unfortunately, I can kind of tell where the filmmakers are getting a lot of their inspiration from. Willow and his friend Meegosh, after being captured by the brownies, are sent on a quest to protect Elora by some kind of forest sorceress whom I refer to on Twitter as Galadriel's "non-union Mexican equivalent." Apparently the novelization explains more--including her relationship to Fin Raziel and Bavmorda--but I shouldn't have to refer to the novelization, deleted scenes, etc. for a movie to make sense. According to the novelization she was a senior sorceress (and also a forest fairy of some kind) mentoring Raziel and Bavmorda, the latter of whom went bad. In the film it's not even clear if she's human or some kind of elf, fairy, etc. Hence "Galaldriel's non-union Mexican equivalent." Making her human--and perhaps involved in the military resistance against Bavmorda we see elsewhere in the film--would be more original, but again, it's not in the film.

*Per the above, there's a lot of missing material that's included in the novelization, earlier drafts of the script, comic books, etc. that would have helped the movie make a lot more sense. For example, Bavmorda believes that even if she killed baby Elora, she'd be reborn in a new body and the prophecy would kick back in. Hence the elaborate ritual to banish Elora's soul to another dimension and/or destroy it completely so that never happens rather than simply murdering her at first chance. There's also a character's defection that has a lot more back-story in the extended universe, but in the actual movie it seems like they're mostly doing it out of love (or at least lust) for one of the good guys.

(I suggested in the podcast the movie could be a bit longer to fix these issues, but Nic cited the example of his own child getting bored later in the movie to point out this risks losing the attention of the primary audience. The deleted scenes pertaining to the defector character--beware spoilers--don't add many minutes to the film, although the last bit involving a character conscious while imprisoned in a crystal is so ridiculous and cheap-looking. A few bits of dialogue here and there would be fine, but lots and lots of new scenes, not so much. I still think it'd be doable, although we're about 34 years too late. If you want an alternative take that's not overly elaborate, check out this fan-fic here. Spoilers beware.)

The Verdict

Not perfect, but a fun and entertaining fantasy film. Also a means of teaching good values to the target audience (kids) without being preachy and annoying to adults. 8.5 out of 10.

And while you're at it, check out my novella Little People, Big Guns. Although it on the surface it looks rather tacky and exploitative, my intention was to get into the real life issues little people face--people ignoring them because they can't see them, problems functioning in a world designed for people much larger than themselves, health difficulties, bullying by bigger people, and even weird fetishization. Davis actually runs an acting agency that started out representing his coworkers with dwarfism and later included those who were unusually tall.

CONjuration 2022 Panel Schedule

On November 4-6, the Hilton Atlanta Airport in Atlanta, GA will be hosting CONjuration, a convention dedicated to magical fantasy like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc. The panels are already being assembled and here are the ones I'm slated to participate at present. More than three panels means I don't have to pay for a table, so I anticipate this one being profitable. :)

"The Problem of Fenrir Greyback"-This one is led by Marlena Frank and Kelley Frank from the Atlanta Horror Writers Association chapter. I applied on the strength of my long-ago Harry Potter fanfic "Lord of the Werewolves," in which the werewolf terrorist Greyback plays a prominent role. Although he's still canon's "big bad wolf," I depicted him as someone who'd realistically serve as the war chief of Britain's werewolves--intelligent, strategy-minded, more knowledgeable about Muggle politics and warfare than most of Britain's wizards, and all-too-aware that once his ally of convenience Voldemort has triumphed, he and his aren't long for the world. Since Greyback doesn't appear very often in the actual books, one could imagine his more intelligent actions take place off-screen...not every mastermind type is as dignified and classy as Vito Corleone and someone could be a brute in public and much cleverer in private. 12 PM on Saturday 11/5, Rabun Room.

(And definitely check out "Lord of the Werewolves"--before I started putting out my own books, it was probably the best thing I ever wrote.)

"Unleash the Kraken"-This one is about editing your work, including avoiding being too precious about your own words to judge them objectively. I'm going to talk about my experience with writing groups and professional editors. 4 PM on Saturday 11/5, Ogeechee Room.

"Sorting B-Movie Monsters"-Which Hogwarts house would the giant ants from Them! belong to? I'm thinking Hufflepuff, since ants are hardworking and group-oriented. It'd be easy to shove movie monsters into Slytherin ("any means to achieve their ends"), but I imagine many are more complicated than that. The Predators could be suited to Gryffindor--physical bravery and martial honor. If the selfish and cowardly Peter Pettigrew can end up in Gryffindor because he wished he were as brave as James Potter and Sirius Black, then the Predators who actually do demonstrate at least some of these qualities would fit in. Various mad-scientist types would fit in Ravenclaw, especially the more well-intentioned or tragic ones. Hive-monster types like the Xenomorph or the vampires in Priest would fit in Hufflepuff; the latter's villainous Black Hat might straddle the line between Gryffindor (courageous, daring, proud) and Slytherin (ambitious, cunning, treacherous). Lanier, 7 PM on Friday 11/4.

"Ladyhawkes, Beastmasters, Legends and More: Fantasy Films of the 1980's"-I just saw Willow for a Myopia Movies episode slated for a premiere in November and even went so far as to order the novelization to go deeper into the story. I've also seen many 1980s fantasy movies for Myopia, and plenty on my own. Ogeechee, 4 PM, on Sunday 11/6.

"The Light to Dark Duality of Labyrinth"-Although many people who saw Labyrinth as children will remember the Jim Henson creatures, there's some surprisingly adult content in here. And David Bowie as a threatening yet strangely alluring older man is just part of it. Check out my blog post "Labyrinth is Hellraiser for Kids" if you'd like more. 7 PM on Saturday 11/5, Ogeechee Room.

"Southern Fried Fantasy"-What extra flavor does Southern culture bring to fantasy? I applied for this one because my "Long War" novels (The Thing In The Woods and The Atlanta Incursion) have some distinctly Southern tics even if they're more horror and science fiction. I've also read the sleazier Bringing Home The Rain by Bob McGough, whose protagonist is a meth-addicted small-town wizard. Incidentally, McGough himself will be on the panel. 6 PM on Saturday 11/5, Rabun Room.

"How To Get Your Book Published"-This is about the state of the publishing industry and the ways to get one's books published. I have a good bit of experience with small-press and independent publishing, so this is where I can make myself useful. 3 PM on Sunday 11/6, Harding Room.

Here are the convention membership prices. If you'd like to come see me present and check out a bunch of other cool panels, come on down!

New Comics Purchase: FRANK FRAZETTA'S DEATH DEALER (2022)

Hey everybody, it's been awhile since I posted anything, but I've been working a lot on Serpent Sword, the sequel to my novel Battle for the Wastelands. However, I'm writing to let you all know that I've bought some comics from a comic shop for the first time in probably over a decade. Here goes...

A couple weeks ago a friend, his wife, and new(ish) baby were visiting from out of town and after lunch we went to a Marietta comic shop in the same shopping center where, many years ago, the son of our old Scoutmaster worked. One of the comics I saw--but ended up not buying at the time--was based on noted fantasy artist Frank Frazetta's iconic fantasy character The Death Dealer. Given how I'd read the 1990s-era Death Dealer novels at the library when I was younger and own the Frazetta art book Icon, my curiosity was piqued. And when I found out via CBR that Frazetta's family intended the new Death Dealer comic to be the beginning of a "Frazettaverse" incorporating characters and creatures from his art, I decided to give it my financial support.

So I went to a comic shop closer to my home in Atlanta and purchased the first, the second, and the third issues, which is all of what seemed to be available. According to this website, the next issue is slated for August 24.

The Plot: I would describe this as "Conan the Barbarian meets Venom." The protagonist Kur, once a warrior seeking power and glory, put on a supernatural horned helmet, which he cannot take off. The helmet has a mind of its own, generally egging him on to more violence and talking enormous amounts of smack. Kur lives alone and is contemplating suicide when he rescues the red-haired witch Admira and her young son Mesh from wolves. He takes them back to his underground lair, where Mesh takes a liking to him and Admira, tending to his wounds, quickly gets physical. Awakening the next morning, Kur finds both of them kidnapped by dark forces and, against his better judgement, sets off to rescue them. He encounters a sorceress--who seems to be an old flame who has a history with the damned soul dwelling in the helmet--and it turns out there are more supernatural doings afoot.

The Good: Giving the Horned Helmet (in the novels it was capitalized) a mind of its own rather it just being a device that amped up the protagonist's physical prowess and aggression was interesting. This allows for Kur to have an Eddie Brock/Venom-type relationship with it. That was one thing I really liked about the first Venom film (I haven't seen the second), even though the movie was basically a buddy comedy and this...isn't. The Death Dealer is such a cipher character--in the painting he's just a big scary-looking dude--that one can do a lot with him. In the novels he was a noble savage trying to defend the valley that would someday become the Mediterranean by any means necessary, while in this one he's a much more tired and anti-heroic figure. Given how the Horned Helmet can go from person to person, it's possible the novels (and an earlier attempt at comics) take place in the same continuity, although the novels were explicitly set on prehistoric Earth and this comic seems to be in a totally different fantasy world.

The art is also really good. It's very colorful and vivid. I also liked how they worked specific Frazetta concepts into the comics--not only is the titular character a direct draw from a Frazetta painting, but they also worked in another one in which the Death Dealer confronts a gigantic crocodile.

The Bad: I must be a bit spoiled from graphic novels (which are typically collections of multiple issues that tell the complete story) because I thought the comics were a bit short. This is especially blatant with the third issue, in which two side quests (a unicorn and a wizard) that might merit expansion into an issue each are dealt with in a few pages. And since this is a monthly comic, it means a lot more waiting in between. If each comic were a bit longer, this wouldn't be a problem. Also, although I wouldn't expect a Frazetta adaptation to be particularly modest--Frazetta wasn't known for that at all, even if he wasn't nearly as raunchy as other fantasy artists--the way we first meet the sorceress is kind of dumb.

I emailed the comic company to see about the possibility of subscribing (since unlike the 1990s X-Men comics there's nothing to mail in with a check) or whether the individual comics would be consolidated into larger graphic novels. At $5 per comic, a graphic novel consolidating all the individual comics into one larger issue covering an entire storyline would be the better buy. However, the comic is so new (and it's from a smaller company) that it might not get to that point unless it does well enough financially. And that requires people buy it now. The comic shop offered to set me up with a subscription (i.e. they let me know when it's in for me to pick up or they mail it to me), which I might well do if I don't hear back from the company.

Book Review: SWORD AND PLANET (2021)

"Sword and Planet" is a sub-genre mixing science fiction and fantasy tropes that, although one of the oldest in modern SF (think the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories featuring heroic Earthman John Carter on a habitable Mars) doesn't get the attention it merits. Fortunately Baen put out Sword and Planet, a collection of several such stories, which I got the pleasure of reviewing. Here goes...

The collection starts out with a bang with Tim Akers' "A Murder of Knights." Basically a member of a high-tech knightly order has to investigate some sinister doings and finds himself facing off against something abominable, with a very bloody deadline. It seems like an origin story for a particular character and according to a conversation I had with the author, there's more content out there set in this universe. The fact my first reaction to the story was to see if there was more of it reflects very well on this collection.

Another story I enjoyed was R.R. Virdi's "A Knight Luminary" in which a trainee knight in a future war with a machine intelligence *still* hasn't manifested the psychic powers he needs. He and his fellows investigation an outpost that's gone silent and, as can be expected, things go very, very wrong.

"Bleeding From Cold Sleep" by longtime Warhammer 40K author Peter Fehervari features a fugitive member of what are essentially humanity's Cossacks (the vanguard of human expansion against a myriad of alien races, the first of which are based in a more pulp-fiction version of our own solar system) and just why he's a fugitive. It turns out there's a threat much, much closer to home.

In T. C. McCarthy's "The Test," a world that has regressed into a medieval state features a king, his son who reminds me a lot of Prince Hal from Shakespeare's HENRY IV, and another son who'd like to usurp him. And did I mention there are monsters and priests using advanced technology? This was fun too.

Rounding out my favorite stories is the novella "Queen Amid Ashes," set in author Christopher Ruocchio's SUN EATER universe (which begins with the novel Empire of Silence, the first of several). Our hero Imperial noble Hadrian Marlowe and his companion, the foreign cyborg doctor Valka, and their Imperial troops must liberate a world under attack by the predatory alien Cielcin, but there's much more going on than an alien invasion. There are some very vivid descriptions here.

Unfortunately, not every story in the collection is so grand. I loved the Deathstalker novels when I was in middle school, but Simon R. Green's "Saving The Emperor," which describes the origin of the titular Deathstalker noble family, was disappointing. I had a hard time following Susan R. Matthews' "Operatix Triumphans."

Still, no collection is perfect and I would definitely recommend this one. 8.0 out of 10.

LABYRINTH Is HELLRAISER For Kids

The other day I watched Labyrinth on the elliptical at the gym and while ironing some clothes. The thought hit me that it has a lot in common with, surprisingly enough, Hellraiser and its sequel Hellraiser 2: Hellbound. Beware spoilers for all three films.

Firstly, both franchises have significant stepmother-stepdaughter drama. Hellraiser protagonist Kirsty Cotton and her stepmother Julia clearly don't get along at the beginning of the first film and once supernatural forces get involved, it escalates into outright violence. In the second film, once Julia has been thoroughly corrupted, she explicitly refers to herself as the wicked stepmother and the evil queen and mocks Kirsty as "Snow White." Meanwhile, protagonist Sarah Williams is openly disrespectful toward her stepmother Irene in Labyrinth, and Irene clearly does not know what to do with her. Knowing her stepdaughter's interest in fantasy, Irene complains that Sarah treats her as a "wicked stepmother."

Furthermore, at the beginning of the film when we first meet here, I get serious Julia vibes off Irene. They're both dressed formally (albeit for different reasons--Irene and Sarah's father are going on a date and Julia just seems like an ice-queen in general) and their hairstyles are somewhat alike. Although there's more open hostility between the two than between Kirsty Cotton and her stepmother Julia in the first Hellraiser, Sarah is several years younger than Kirsty and significantly less mature. Perhaps Julia and Kirsty were similarly hostile when Kirsty was a young teen, although if that were the case I doubt Kirsty's father Larry would have been so foolish as to assume a now-adult Kirsty would want to live with them in their new town or later ask her to help him figure out why Julia is acting so strangely.

Later, when Sarah becomes frustrated by baby Toby's crying, she wishes the Goblin King would take him "far away from me." The crying abruptly stops and when Sarah goes to investigate, we see goblins in the walls, moving under mattresses, etc. That gave me major Hellraiser vibes, especially given how Kirsty's sinister uncle Frank Cotton's personal hell in the second film involved sensual women under sheets (who disappeared when he removed them), how doorways to Hell formed in the walls, etc. You can see some of that in the clips below.

Also, Kirsty in the first Hellraiser solved the puzzle box and summoned the Cenobites completely ignorant of what the box actually did. She was curious about this device that her undead uncle was so protective of, started fiddling with it, and then this happened. 

Like Kirsty, Sarah had no idea that her frustrated wish to be rid of her baby half-brother would actually summon a supernatural being. And although Jareth and his goblin cronies are significantly less rough than Pinhead and his crew are, there are definitely similarities. Here are two YouTube clips depicting Sarah summoning him and his arrival:

The Goblin King is nowhere near as dangerous as Pinhead--the latter is a Dracula-like sadist who attempts to welch on his bargains, while Jareth is more whimsical and kid-friendly--but both are dangerous and sexual creatures with an unhealthy interest in the young, brunette female protagonist.

Oh, and there's that. Pinhead describes himself as his crew as "explorers of the furthest reaches of experience, demons to some and angels to others" and they subjected Frank to "pain and pleasure indivisible" when he was under their control. The almighty TVTropes describes the Cenobites as "the priests of an S&M religion." In the climax of Hellraiser, Pinhead attempts to abduct Kirsty, telling her that, "We have such sights to show you," while the in second film, he confidently allows Kirsty to freely wander his realm, informing her that, "We have eternity to know your flesh." 

The sexuality in Labyrinth is a bit more subtle given how this is a children's movie, but Jareth's infamous bulging crotch has been discussed at length online, we see David Bowie as Sarah's mother's new boyfriend in a newspaper (a romantic rivalry with one's own mother?), and Jareth gets very testy at the notion of Sarah kissing Hoggle, a dwarfish creature whom she befriends in the Labyrinth. This culminates in Sarah essentially getting roofied and dancing with Jareth at a ball, a scene that is downright rapey. And Jareth later straight-up propositions Sarah, telling her, "I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me. Do as I say and I will be your slave."

Finally, both franchises have elaborate mazes. Sarah must solve the titular Labyrinth in thirteen hours to rescue her brother from Jareth, while Kirsty briefly ventures into the Cenobites' realm when she solves the box in the first Hellraiser film. The second film features a more extensive exploration of the Cenobites' maze-like realm.

So although rarely does one associate a children's fantasy film (albeit one with some significant adult subtext) like Labyrinth with the sexual horror of Hellraiser, there are an interesting number of similarities.

Bad Movie Review: Highlander 2: The Quickening (1991)

Once upon a time, Myopia Movies did an episode on the Christopher Lambert classic Highlander. Some years later, we decided on an episode on Highlander 2: The Quickening, the 1991 sequel. AKA "the one where they're aliens." The version I ended up watching was the "renegade cut" from 1995 that removed all the nonsense about the immortals being aliens from the planet Zeist, although it still has its problems. The episode is exclusively for our Patreon subscribers; sign up here.

And now for the review. Calling it a "Bad Movie Review" this time, since I didn't see it years before like many Myopia films and, well, it's BAD.

The Plot

After the events of the first film, the thinning of the ozone layer necessitated the creation of an artificial replacement sponsored by none other than the now-mortal Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert). This new atmosphere, though it protects mankind, denies humanity the stars, ordinary views of the sky, and seems to have a generally negative effect on the climate. Connor has grown old and is despised by many of the people he had tried to protect.

However, the villainous General Katana (Michael Ironside), ruler of a lost civilization from the distant past (in the theatrical version an alien civilization) that had exiled the immortals to (their) distant future, worries that Connor might choose to return to his own time and once more challenge him. So he sends goons to kill him, inadvertently reactivating his immortality and de-aging him 30 years. Connor joins forces with ecoterrorist Louise Marcus (Virginia Madsen) to fight against Katana's henchmen and ultimately Katana himself, who allies with the sinister megacorporation controlling the planetary shield.

And what role does Ramirez (Sean Connery), Connor's long-dead immortal mentor, play in this whole situation?

The Good

*Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and Michael Ironside are having lots of fun playing their characters. Ironside in particular is absolutely over the top, playing the character as Jack Nicholson's Joker wearing Conan the Barbarian villain Thulsa Doom's wig and costume. Ironside is really entertaining to watch. He later said that he, Connery, and Lambert all recognized they were dealing with a crappy script and he decided he was going to have as much fun as possible. Ironside makes for a much more entertaining villain than the Kurgan--sorry Clancy Brown and your awesome medieval outfit that inspired the villain Grendel from my novel Battle for the Wastelands.

*They clearly had more money for action sequences and special effects for this one than they had for the original.

*Katana's duels with Connor are pretty impressive. It's my understanding that Lambert has really bad vision and thus couldn't fight effectively in the first movie, but in this one everything's much more fluid and they're a lot more likely to punch and kick each other. After all, this is a battle to the death, so why bother with any rules about technique and what-not?

*It's fast-moving and other than one scene, never dull.

*There are some genuinely funny bits, many of which revolve about Ramirez's difficulties with the modern world and his propensity to flirt with every woman he meets.

*I liked the callbacks to "Who Wants To Live Forever," probably one of the most legitimately poignant sequences in any movie I've seen in recent years.

The Bad

Where to start? Even with all the alien nonsense removed, there's so much in here that doesn't make any sense or is just plain ridiculous.

*The whole ozone-layer plot is ridiculous and really dated. The thinning of the ozone layer would cause increased likelihood of skin cancer and other problems, but it wouldn't cause masses of people to burn to death. And an artificial ozone layer wouldn't affect the climate like it does. And it shouldn't be that hard to determine if the ozone layer has recovered enough that the hugely expensive shield would not be required. And how was Connor in the position to sponsor a massive feat of geoengineering? He was "New York City antique dealer rich," not "Elon Musk rich." And not only did he help create this world-saving megaproject, but then he essentially abandons it and allows some generic 1980s/1990s corporate baddie to usurp it?

It would have been better to have the dying mortal Connor living in some kind of generic Bad Future where his attempts to use the psychic abilities gained from his defeat of the Kurgan and winning "The Prize" to improve the world ended up either being totally useless or backfiring and causing the whole situation. Suddenly his youth (or at least his immortality) return and he loses his psychic abilities because new immortals have been activated (i.e. they suffer their first death and resurrection). Now he essentially plays Ramirez to new heroes and fights a new villain. If his immortality is restored but he's still in his 60s or 70s he might not be a frontline fighter like he used to be, although given how bad Old Man Connor is, having him stay in his old-man persona the entire film would be really lame.

(If Connor has to be a mentor to a new generation of immortals you could have flashbacks to his mentoring by Ramirez, allowing Sean Connery to make a return appearance without the completely absurd magical explanation. According to some Highlander fans, Ramirez was training Connor for a year, so there could be plenty of interesting things not depicted in the original film.)

*Instead of being aliens, the "renegade cut" makes the immortals rebels from a long-forgotten ancient civilization who were punished for rebellion by exile into the distant future. They had to kill each other until there was only one left, and that lone survivor could choose to return. Whatever happened to Ramirez asking "why does the sun shine" when Connor asked why immortals existed? Better no explanation at all than the absurdity we got.

(Also, the flashback sequences to the distant-distant past looked like B-Roll footage from the 1980s adaptation of Dune.)

At one point Connor is explaining to Louise how the whole situation works and she seems to think it makes absolutely no sense. He decides at this point to end the conversation by saying "it's a kind of magic," a call-back to the original film where he explains his immortality to his adopted daughter Rachel. I think they were deliberately mocking their own premise at this point. 

*General Katana is such a stupid name, especially since Connor's main fighting sword is a katana. No wonder Michael Ironside thought the script had been written by a 13-year-old boy.

*Connor as an old man sounds like he's trying to continuously do "I could've been a contender" from On The Waterfront. It's ridiculous-sounding. TVTropes said he sounded like a six-year-old trying to mimic his elderly grandfather.

*Louise is much less effective a character than Brenda, Connor's love interest from the original film. Brenda managed to figure out Connor was immortal from handwriting samples and studying his confiscated sword, got taken hostage by the Kurgan to bait Connor into the final battle, and then helped Connor defeat him. Louise clues Connor into realizing something is wrong at the megacorporation running the planetary shield and later helps them infiltrate the company's HQ, but her role is much less impactful.

The Verdict

This isn't as sucky as Battlefield Earth or Spawn, but it's still not worth the bother. You want to see what happened to MacLeod after the events of the first film, go watch Highlander III, the TV show (where his character dropped in occasionally), or Highlander Endgame. I'm pretty sure this movie isn't even canon anymore. 5.5 out of 10.

(If you want to hear us absolutely wreck this film, including an amusing sequence where Daniel and I take turns impersonating Connery and Lambert while singing that song about milkshakes bringing the boys to the yard, sign up for the Patreon here.)

Productivity Update 7/13/21

It's been awhile since I've posted an update on my current projects. However, I saw that Chris Nuttall had done that and that reminded me. So let's start with my current primary focus...

Serpent Sword: Battle for the Wastelands #2-There are ten completed chapters, and between those and the partial chapters later on, I have a total word count of 53,694. I think the finish product will be somewhat longer than the original Battle for the Wastelands' 89,000 words, so I'm about halfway through perhaps? I already have the cover art (see below) and have written the book copy, but even if I complete the manuscript in, say, October or November, tasks like hiring a professional editor, revising, formatting, finding another author to blurb it, etc. will take time and then releasing it in December might not be a wise idea. It might be better to hold off until early 2022.

I've noticed that at conventions and on Amazon (especially after the BookBub featured deal), the "Long War" novels The Thing in the Woods and The Atlanta Incursion sell significantly better than Battle and its prequel novella "Son of Grendel." Consequently, once I have Serpent Sword out the door, it is my plan to swing back to that series and put out the third novel The Walking Worm (book copy here) and then the fourth novel, Shadowmen before returning to the Wastelands world with the third book, tentatively titled Escape.

(Once Serpent Sword is published, I'm going to try for a BookBub featured deal for Battle on the grounds that an available sequel would make it more likely to get approval and ultimately more profitable--people might get Battle for $0.99 and then pay full price for Serpent Sword and "SOG." If BookBub does for the Wastelands series what it did for Thing and TAI, I might do Escape before Shadowmen, but the Wastelands world is weird--it's secondary-world fantasy without magic, it's steampunk and post-apocalyptic but it's not in our world, etc. And generally horror sells better than steampunk.)

I have already started writing TWW and Shadowmen, although I don't think I have any completed chapters. TWW's current word count is 16,504 and Shadowmen's word count is 11,236. I can definitely complete TWW in 2022 and I could potentially complete Shadowmen in 2022 as well, given how the "Long War" series is less research-heavy than Wastelands and in particular Shadowmen takes place in the same town as Thing.

Like Serpent Sword, I already have the cover for The Walking Worm made. Here you go. That's MJ-12 agent Thomas Bolton (who first appears briefly in Thing but is in TAI a lot more) on the left and our hero James Daly on the right.

Finally, in April I completed the short story "Run, Hide, Feed" and submitted it to a modern-monster collection. They chose not to include it and it was rejected by an online horror magazine soon after. There are still some pro-rate horror publications I haven't submitted to, although the subject matter (it was written to comment on U.S. mass shootings, in particular the amount of media attention paid to the shooters) makes it a bit of a hot potato. We shall see.

(Current) Book Copy For SERPENT SWORD: BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS #2

Just submitted Ch. 9 of Serpent Sword, the sequel to my military fantasy novel Battle for the Wastelands to my writing group. Per my earlier blog post, I hope to get the novel completed and published before the end of 2021, and based on word counts I'm probably around halfway to finishing it. Running it through writing group, getting professional editing, etc. will take time so I imagine it'll be close, but it's still doable.

In the meantime, here's the current draft of the book copy. Spoilers for the first novel, so be ye warned.

“Killing a cannibal overlord was just the beginning. Now there’s a war to win, and the odds are getting worse.

For capturing a dirigible from the cannibalistic Flesh-Eating Legion and rescuing rebel chieftain Alonzo Merrill, Andrew Sutter earned a promotion. Now the rebel armies are carving a bloody swathe toward the old capital of Jacinto. Victory seems near as the man-eaters crumble before the Merrills’ salvaged Old World arsenal.

But Grendel, first lord of the Northlands, marches south to turn back the tide. Although he had planned to betray the Flesh-Eaters and replace them with his son by Alonzo’s captive sister Catalina, Grendel cannot let the rebels’ defeat of the Flesh-Eater ruler go unavenged. He brings with him hundreds of thousands of reinforcements and Catalina herself as bait.

With Jacinto under siege and enemy armies drawing ever-nearer, Andrew and his friends must descend into the occupied city of Long Branch to rescue Catalina and confront the dreaded first lord himself.”

The title is the operational name for the assault on the Long Branch citadel. Given how Grendel's personal dirigible is called the Nicor — a Norse word for "water-monster" — and bears a dragon-head on its prow, giving the mission to kill him that name seems appropriate.

(Look closely at the cover and that's the Nicor floating over Long Branch's citadel. Imagine a Viking longship updated for steampunk warfare.)

Chapter One Readings: BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS and LITTLE PEOPLE, BIG GUNS

Using a strategy inspired by my little sister, I have decided to put my YouTube channel to work. I'd posted a video of my reading part of the prologue of The Thing in the Woods up earlier because someone else shot it and sent me the video, but I upped my game by recording my reading the first chapters of my steampunk military fantasy novel Battle for the Wastelands and my bizarro comedy-horror novella Little People, Big Guns.

Owing to how Blogger is integrated into the Google platform, posting them there was the next logical step. Behold...

Battle For The Wastelands

Little People, Big Guns

Enjoy! The next video I'm going to post will be a reading from the first chapter of "Son of Grendel" and then maybe the first bits of the short stories from Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire. Not sure when that's going to be.

Summer and Fall 2021 Convention Schedule (So Far)

Given how lucrative conventions are for me--one convention's profits equate to several months' Amazon royalties--and COVID seems to be waning, I'm getting events lined up for this summer and fall. This is still in-progress, so I might come back and edit this post as necessary. Hopefully there won't be any COVID spikes or political nonsense that could interfere...

Confirmed Events

June 5, 2021: The Middle Georgia Comic Convention in Macon, GA. I want to expand outside of the Atlanta market without hotel expenses cutting into my profits, so a one-day event an hour and a half or so outside of Atlanta is just perfect. I made sure to contact some of the local media in advance--the newspaper did a preview story (and the editor came by to purchase two books), while the local TV station announced it was coming and then interviewed one of my Horror Writers Association Atlanta Chapter colleagues. I made a decent profit and got 17 new e-mails for my newsletter, which will be helpful in the long run.

July 10, 2021: Comics and Collectibles Show in Braselton, GA. I think a lot of the people involved in Toylanta 2021 were involved in this one and Braselton is convenient to both heavily-populated Gwinnett County and Athens, the home of the University of Georgia. And cheap table cost too. :)

August 6-8, 2021: Atlanta Comic-Con-This is the big kahuna--I made all the money I mentioned above when I split the table cost with C.S. Johnson and I've got a partner for this one as well, fellow Atlanta Horror Writers Association member Venessa Giunta. And last time I only had two books, The Thing in the Woods and The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Vol. 2, the latter of which I straight-up sold out on. This time around I'll have seven books available, including the Thing sequel The Atlanta Incursion (great for two-for-one deals) and the completely new (to ACC) steampunk Wastelands series. I'm also going to set Thing and Battle for the Wastelands e-books to $0.99 and hand out a lot of cards with QR codes linking to them, a strategy that has ginned up e-book sales before.

Also, Cineprov, an Atlanta film comedy troupe whose membership overlaps significantly with Myopia Movies, may be performing there as well. Come for the humor, stay for the products. :)

August 14, 2021: FarleyCon-I found out about this event at Toylanta in mid-March. Although I'm leery of out-of-state events due to hotel costs eating my profits, this event takes place in a suburb outside of Chattanooga, pretty close to the Georgia line. Table costs were pretty low, although owing to the distance mileage is going to be an expense.

August 15, 2021: Atlanta Comic Convention-This is a relatively short event relatively close to Emory University. I've been there a couple times before, but this time I've got a lot more stuff than last time.

October 2, 2021: NextChapterCon-This event is dedicated to independent authors and books solely. I attended two previous events and served as a panelist on multiple panels, so it's good to carry on the tradition. Furthermore, this year's event will be in Dalton rather than Ringgold, meaning hopefully a larger audience given how it's a larger community to start with and Dalton State College is located there..

In-Process

October 8-10, 2021: Monsterama-This is another relatively new convention. It's a bit of a hike from my day job and so last time I dawdled so much that I ended up not being able to get a table when I finally decided to apply. However, Toylanta showed that going straight from work to a convention that officially starts Friday night in the northern suburbs is completely doable.

2021 Publication Plans: SERPENT SWORD (BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS #2)

Former member of my writing group Jeff Baker attended the Liberty Con convention a few years ago and brought back word from a self-publishing panel that the best way to self-publish is to "churn and burn"--put work out there quickly. Although independent publishing allows me to put out stuff faster than a traditional publisher (I put out Battle for the Wastelands in December 2019, "Son of Grendel" in May 2020, and The Atlanta Incursion in July 2020), I listen to a lot of writing podcasts and there are indie writers who put stuff out much faster. Heck, closer to home I have the example of current writing group Dave Schroeder, who puts out 1-2 books per year.

("SOG," TAI, and especially Battle had been written years in the past and had been sitting in my file, so 2019-2020 was not my usual production speed.)

Some of my slowness in comparison to others is hard to get around--the Wastelands books in particular are very research-intensive, I run the whole manuscript through my writing group and then heavily revise based on their suggestions, I hire a professional editor/formatter and cover designer rather than do it myself, and I commission illustrated cover art rather than using pre-made covers--but I also tend to dawdle and spend too much time on things like my blog, Twitter, etc. So I'm going to do my level best to make sure that Serpent Sword: Battle for the Wastelands #2 comes out sometime in 2021, the earlier the better. This involves committing in advance to have chapters for my writing group even if they're not finished when I make the reservation, which was a major reason I got The Thing in the Woods, Battle, and Little People, Big Guns finished as quickly as I did.

So far so good--I have the first six chapters completed out of around 33-34, and lots of chunks of future chapters already written. The total word count is around 37,000 words and if the expected final word count is around 90K, that's a great big chunk done. I also have the cover art already made, which will save even more time.

(If you like the cover, check out West Coast artist Matt Cowdery, who's illustrated a lot of my independent projects. The people you meet on the last day of DragonCon when tickets are only $30.)

I'd initially hoped to get it done sometime over the summer and potentially have room to finish and publish The Walking Worm, the second sequel to Thing. However, owing to the need to cycle that through writing group, the whole editing/publishing process, and whatever conventions I can scrounge up for the year, it seems very unlikely that I'd be able to get it out in 2021.

My Convention Setup For Convention Applications

As part of a convention application, I need to submit an online photo of my typical setup at a genre convention. Having searched the Interwebs and social media, I only found a couple photos, period, and most of them were fairly bare-bones (only my earliest books, no tablecloth) shots of my early conventions rather than the more elaborate ones that came later.

So here's a shot of my typical setup, somewhat abbreviated because I'm using my card table rather than the six-foot table most conventions provide.

Owing to the table's smaller size, I wasn't able to get all of my books onto it, but here's my current convention inventory, broken down by genre:

Battle for the Wastelands-A post-apocalyptic steampunk military fantasy with a lot of political intrigue. I describe it as "Dark Tower meets Game of Thrones." First in a series.

"Son of Grendel"-A Battle for the Wastelands prequel novella featuring the villain's eldest son leading a counterinsurgency mission. It takes place around a year before the main book.

The Thing in the Woods-My debut novel, a tale of Lovecraftian horror set in small-town Georgia rather than the typical rural New England. It stands alone as a creature feature, but the story continues with...

The Atlanta Incursion-The sequel to Thing, featuring one of the surviving characters as a college student in Atlanta and a confrontation with a new otherworldly threat. This gets into more science-fiction territory than Thing does, but I would still consider it horror.

Little People, Big Guns-This horror-comedy features little people (they don't like being called "midgets") fighting predatory badgers...and worse.

The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Vol. 2-This is a collection of around twenty sword and sorcery stories (think Conan the Barbarian) featuring my Viking tale "Nicor."

Flashing Steel, Flashing Fire-My first independently-published book, a collection of ten science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories.

Princess Elisabeta The Ibbur, Or a Judeo-Calvinist Interpretation of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

The most recent episode of the film podcast Myopia Movies covers Bram Stoker's Dracula, the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola classic known for its beautiful visuals, the awesomeness that is Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves' questionable accent. The following discussion contains spoilers for a movie that's nearly 30 years old, so be ye warned...

When I first saw it in high school, what stuck out to me was that they gave Dracula of all people a redemption arc. The count (Gary Oldman) begins the story as a Christian warrior fighting the invading Ottoman Turks and renounces God when his wife Elisabeta, incorrectly thinking he was killed in battle, commits suicide and the priests tell the grieving Vlad she's in Hell. What I remembered was that upon learning Mina Harker (Winona Ryder) was the reincarnation of his lost love, his resolve to do evil weakens--he initially refuses to turn Mina into a vampire even though she very much wants it (!) and when the hunters confront him, he initially flees rather than try to fight them. This I attributed to his realizing that Elisabeta is not in Hell--was his rebellion against God and the atrocities he committed as history's infamous Impaler a mistake? Is he now reconsidering all his life choices?

More recently, as I became more familiar with Calvinism, I even concluded that although most vampire fiction is very heavily Catholic, this one is actually rather Reformed. Dracula was predestined by God for salvation from before Creation (see Ephesians 1:4), but he rebels against God, cursing Him for Elisabeta's death and (he thinks) damnation. However, those who are truly His are never out of His hand, even though they may try to jump from it. God is determined that Dracula be redeemed and so He allows Dracula to become a vampire--the count will be saved even if it takes 400-odd years to do it.

(In the meantime Dracula commits all sorts of horrors, but if God is in control, one could argue He allowed this for His own purposes--delaying the Ottoman invasion of Europe to prevent mass apostasy from Christianity, punishing the corrupt boyars and criminals the historical Vlad was known for treating harshly, etc. And given how some historians think Vlad's crimes might have been exaggerated by his enemies, he might not have been as monstrous as one might think.)

But what about Elisabeta? Doesn't reincarnation go against the Bible? Hebrews 9:27 pretty explicitly says man dies once and then the Judgement and in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Christianity is explicitly true--crosses/crucifixes, communion wafers, etc. have supernatural power against evil. I'm assuming Elisabeta was a Christian and the idea that people who commit suicide automatically go to Hell is not biblical, so one would assume she's in Heaven. However, the Bible does contain the account of the Witch of Endor, who manages to summon from the dead none other than the prophet Samuel, who repeats the prophecies of divine judgement he made on Earth. Some Christians believe this was actually a demonic being impersonating Samuel, but this entity does not seem to be any different from Samuel when he was on Earth. In any event, Samuel's prophecy of Saul's death comes true and a test of a true prophet is whether their predictions come true. And then there's the spirit God sends to torment Saul (see 1 Samuel 16:14-23), although that could be depression or some kind of mental illness rather than an actual supernatural entity--"spirit" in this case could mean "mood" rather than an angel or demon. After all, when David shows up he soothes Saul by playing music, not by exorcising him. :)

So perhaps Mina Harker in the present day is not actually a reincarnation of Elisabeta, but is sort of possessed by her? The notion that a living person can be possessed by the spirit of a dead person actually ties in with the Jewish concepts of dibbuk and ibbur. Although the idea comes from 16th Century Jewish folklore rather than Scripture, it does seem somewhat appropriate given that Winona Ryder's father is Jewish and she describes herself as such too. An ibbur is a dead person temporarily possessing or at least joining with a living person in order to accomplish a religious duty. In this case, tying in with the idea that Vlad was predestined for Heaven despite his crimes, this is Elisabeta returning to Earth for the purpose of leveraging Vlad's ultimate repentance. This would explain why Mina only starts remembering her "past life" as Elisabeta when she encounters Dracula in the present day--there is no indication beforehand she's anything but a sweet-natured (but as I noted in my review, extremely horny) British schoolteacher. And it's appropriate that Jonathan and Mina get married in what seems to be the Eastern Orthodox fashion--as a princess of Transylvania, Elisabeta was probably Orthodox herself, even though Jonathan is Anglican in the novel and I assume Mina is too.

(This could also cycle back to Catholicism--Elisabeta might be in Purgatory and redeeming Vlad, whose renunciation of God was prompted by her own suicide, could be part of the sanctification process prior to her own entering Heaven. However, Dracula's sins are so egregious that even if his last-minute repentance means he doesn't go to Hell, if there's a Purgatory he'll be spending a lot of time there while Elisabeta goes on. That kind of weakens the romanticism a bit, although they'll be reunited eventually.)

However, upon actually watching the film, it seems I didn't recall a lot of the details correctly. Vlad's resolve to do evil does weaken, but his repentance is much vaguer--after he is mortally wounded by Mina's husband Jonathan and their American friend Quincy Morris, Mina takes him to the long-abandoned chapel of Castle Dracula. The dying count reaches for the cross and asks God why He has forsaken him (ummm...you forsook Him). However, when Mina tries to pull the blade out of his chest, Dracula stops her and tells her "it is finished" (sound familiar?).  

Suddenly the light shines down, the candles in the chapel ignite, and the cross Dracula had desecrated so long ago heals. Things get a little theologically fuzzier from there--Mina thinks it was her love that released everybody from the powers of darkness and claims her and Dracula's love is stronger than death--but the light of God does revert the demonic-looking Dracula to his human form. At Dracula's request Mina shoves the knife all the way through his heart and the burn from the Communion wafer disappears from her forehead, indicating that her own growing vampirism has been quelled. Dracula dies apparently seeing something pleasant, Mina cuts off his head to make sure the deed is done, and the film ends implying Dracula and Elisabeta have been reunited in Heaven. Here is the complete scene for your review.

So although claiming Bram Stoker's Dracula is some kind of Christian film is really stretching it (although belief in reincarnation is blatantly heretical, the idea that God temporarily sent Princess Elisabeta's soul back to Earth to ensure Vlad goes to Heaven is still really pushing it), I figured some folks might find this interesting. 

If you want to read BSD in a purely orthodox fashion, Mina remembering a past life as Elisabeta could be the result of Dracula consciously or unconsciously using psychic abilities to fill her head with memories of 15th Century Romania, her consuming mind-altering absinthe, the fact she's a late teen or early 20-something with an overactive imagination infatuated with handsome, charismatic foreigner, or a combination thereof. Mina's thinking it was her love and not God's manipulating circumstances over 400-plus years to save Dracula is her own ego (this is, after all, from her diary written after-the-fact), not a definitive theological statement. After all, the fact she all but commits adultery with a monster who imprisoned and tormented her husband and killed her best friend shows she's not perfect.

Blast From The Past Movie Review: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Myopia Movies, the film podcast I'm a regular participant in, did Bram Stoker's Dracula for our October-themed month on vampires. I remember when the movie came out in 1992 (I wasn't allowed to see it, being in elementary school at the time), although I do remember reading about one of the video-game versions in my friend John's Nintendo Power magazine. I finally got to see the film in high school, when I had my own membership at Blockbuster Video.

However, high school was many, many years ago and the original premise of the podcast was re-watching childhood favorites to see if they were still good. So when the time came to brainstorm for the current season, this one of the movies I really pushed for. Here's the episode. And now for the review.

The Plot

British lawyer Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is sent by his law firm to make the final arrangements for an Eastern European nobleman to purchase some land in London. There's just one small problem--said nobleman is none other than Vlad Dracul (Gary Oldman), the infamous impaler of history and a vampire to boot. He sees Jonathan's locket with an image of his fiancée Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) and becomes infatuated because she reminds him of his dead wife.

So, being evil, he leaves Jonathan for his vampire brides to consume and sets off to London. He feeds off Mina's friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) and attempts to woo Mina, who begins remembering a previous life as Dracula's wife the Princess Elisabeta (also played by Ryder). However, one of Lucy's suitors contacts Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) to deal with Lucy's mysterious "illness" and Jonathan escapes, marrying Mina in an Orthodox ceremony at the nunnery where he's recovering. Dracula as you can imagine is a bit angry and now the war is on. And Mina finds herself surprisingly conflicted...

The Good

*The film is simply beautiful, even though now with improved camera technology it looks a bit aged. The sets are good, the costumes are good, etc. The clothes are well-designed. For example, I get serious Byzantine vibes off Dracula's brides and the robes Dracula wears in one scene, which make sense considering historically Vlad the Impaler was Eastern Orthodox for most of his life. And they use the costumes to make subtle character points--Mina's clothes are a bit out of fashion because she's a schoolteacher wearing her rich friend Lucy's hand-me-downs. It deserved the Academy Awards it got for costuming and makeup.

*I liked some of the characterization. They made Mina a great deal hornier than I recall from the book--she's eager to get married to Jonathan right away and they have a make-out session right before he leaves for Transylvania and she and Lucy at one point kiss (!) in the garden of Lucy's estate. Add Jonathan's prolonged absence and Lucy's "illness" and it's a lot more understandable that Mina might be tempted by the Count. And Dracula is more sympathetic than one would expect of an explicitly Satanic predator. He was a Christian knight victorious in war against the invading Muslim Ottomans--who to spite him tricked his devoted young wife Elisabeta into committing suicide by convincing her he'd been killed in battle. The priests told Vlad that because she'd committed suicide she automatically went to Hell and Vlad proceeded to totally lose it, railing against God and desecrating the church to become a vampire.

(From a Christian POV this is a warning against idolatrous devotion to a romantic partner, self-absorption, and false doctrine. Had Elisabeta not been so unhealthily devoted to Vlad she wouldn't have committed suicide and had Vlad not been so self-absorbed and possessive--he acts more like God had wronged him than wronged Elisabeta--and valued her more than God, he wouldn't have lashed out like he did. And had the priests not incorrectly claimed suicides were automatically damned at the worst possible time, his grieving might have proceeded along more normal channels rather than leading him to become a Satan-worshiping mass murderer.)

*The soundtrack is good too--the film got another Oscar for Best Sound Editing. The credits song "Love Song For a Vampire" is sad and beautiful and the instrumental stuff does well for setting an ominous tone.

*It's got a very high-quality cast. Winona Ryder does a good job as Mina--much like Alien Resurrection, I think she's the best performer in the film. (And per a well-documented Wikipedia article, she was the one who brought the script for what was supposed to be a TV movie to Francis Ford Coppola, so there's even more credit to go around.) Gary Oldman does a good job as Dracula. Anthony Hopkins might be a little too manic as Van Helsing, but he's entertaining. Although Reeves' accent is inconsistent and sometimes he comes off as a bit monotone, I didn't have a problem with his acting per se.

*The film puts Vlad the Impaler's actions in the context of the Fall of Constantinople and the Ottoman invasion of Eastern Europe. Yes, he was a monster (even if there's some speculation that his horrors were exaggerated by his German enemies), but there's a reason he's a national hero in Romania.

The Bad

*My single biggest problem with the movie is how incredibly boring it was. Part of it is that it mimics the original novel, which is written in an epistolary format (letters, diary entries, etc) and so there's a lot of what Nic calls "talky-talk," but there's also the long draggy second fifth or so of the movie in which Dracula comes to Britain to try to seduce Mina. Someone on the almighty TVTropes mentioned a fan-edit that removed the romantic plot that cut around an hour. Seriously, one of the podcast regulars actually fell asleep with a drink in his hand while watching the movie. I got my phone out around 1/3 of the way into the movie, probably during the sequence where Dracula in his guise as a foreign prince visiting Britain is taking Mina out on various dates while, unbeknownst to her, his vampire brides are keeping her fiancé captive and feeding on him.

*Speaking of that, surely Jonathan told Mina about where he'd been and what happened to him after she came to Eastern Europe after getting the letter he was alive and recovering in a convent. She has a lot more reason to hate Dracula beyond what he did to Lucy and yet that's what she seems most angry about when he comes to her and she knows what he is. She should also be angry he had held her fiancé captive and let monsters feed on him for weeks. Taking it a step further, she might have realized that Dracula was keeping Jonathan captive (and thus away from her) and causing Lucy's illness to make her emotionally vulnerable to his seduction. Watching it now I see just how manipulative and predatory Dracula is, and not just in the "drinks blood" sense. Even if Dracula is super good-looking and charismatic, even if she finds his occult nature intriguing or pities his unhappy back-story, even if she's somehow channeling the long-dead soul of his wife and isn't fully herself, why doesn't she realize just how much of a creep he is? In one of their scenes together she seriously Does Not Get It and things just get worse from there.

*Per the above, Mina and Jonathan's relationship doesn't get built up well. Building up Dracula is necessary to realistically show why Mina would be tempted into an adulterous relationship, but what is so special about Jonathan? He's certainly a decent person by any standard, but is he interesting? If they wanted to contrast him with Dracula's physicality and animal magnetism, emphasize that as a lawyer he's schoolteacher Mina's intellectual/career peer? The book does describe him as "uncommonly clever" and "full of energy" and apparently he can speak multiple languages and that's something she might admire. In the episode Nic theorized that they wanted to minimize Reeves' role to avoid accent problems, but that was less of an issue than Mina's actual husband and the original novel's protagonist getting minimized. Even if Dracula and Mina are the real protagonists of this version of the story, Jonathan is underdeveloped even as one of two romantic choices for Mina, let alone a major character. Better a character with a badly-done accent than no character at all.

*What's with Van Helsing getting so excited that Lucy is getting victimized by a vampire? At one point he tells Quincy Morris (Billy Campbell) that Lucy is going to become "a bitch of the devil" and starts humping his leg. Remember, dear reader, that Quincy is one of three men vying to be Lucy's husband. Quincy is right to call him "a sick old buzzard." Hopkins is appropriately zany, but jeez. Someone theorized that he's excited that he's been proven right that vampires exist, but this is at the price of Lucy's safety and ultimately life. There's feeling vindicated and then there's being an ass. Are we supposed to like him?

*The film strongly implies that the historical Vlad's crimes were after he became a vampire, as a consequence of his rage against God. I'd thought that his realization that Elisabeta was not in Hell (because she's been reincarnated as Mina or her soul has somehow become attached to Mina in the present day--never mind that reincarnation is not part of orthodox Christianity, period, and "possessed by the dead" is actually more like the Jewish concept of a dibbuk or ibbur) was making him reconsider his path of destruction. That's what I was referring to when I brought up Calvinism in the episode, although I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about how this would relate to predestination for spoiler reasons. That doesn't seem to be the case here, or at least it's very subtle. Given Dracula's arc in the film, that could have been highlighted more.

*Keanu Reeves' accent is inconsistent. He tries to sound British and sometimes it works, but Ted Logan from the Bill and Ted films comes through quite often. From my understanding, this got mocked a whole heck of a lot when the film came out.

*Sadie Frost doesn't really stick out much as Lucy. Per TVTropes Laura Dern was considered for the part and given her performances in the Jurassic Park films (I don't recall having seen her in anything else), I imagine she'd have been an improvement.

*Dracula was already buying up property in Britain when he noticed how much Jonathan's picture of Mina resembled his dead wife and Renfield--who has no idea Harker has gone to Transylvania--is eagerly awaiting Dracula's coming. So what was he planning on doing in Britain before he got the idea to try to get his hands on Mina?

The Verdict

Much like Blade Runner 2049, a beautiful bore. If you watch it for the acting and visuals, don't forget you have a fast-forward button. 6.5 out of 10.