streaming – Mysterium Coniunctionis

Back when television was beamed on signals through the air we could only receive perhaps five or six channels in my hometown of Stewartstown, Pennsylvania. The clearest channels were those from Baltimore 30 miles away and were nearly all VHF stations. The UHF dial had a few grainy and fuzzy and far-off stations, the clearest of which was channel 17, WPHL-TV out of Philadelphia. I had many opportunities as a very small child to watch Dr. Shock’s Mad Theater.

The movies shown were mostly terrible 1950s drive-in horror fare, with nuclear monsters attacking towns, guys in rubber suits menacing bikini-clad young women, skulls floating along on visible wires and screaming. But they were a pleasant diversion from the more actual horrors of small-town life in the 1970s. And some of the films actually had merit and stuck with me. A few examples: The Incredible Shrinking Man and his awful battle with a spider, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Fly with Vincent Price.

I remember going to see David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly in a theater when it was first released. I enjoyed it so much that I rented other Cronenberg films on VHS at the local video stores. Interestingly at the dawning of my interest in cinema David Cronenberg was perhaps the genesis of my understanding that there were auteurs, visionary and stylistically interesting directors who made challenging, beautiful, disturbing, and instantly recognizable works of art.

I recently rewatched The Fly on a whim for the first time in 40 years. Of course I’ve seen many more movies and films since 1986, including those rated as the height of the art form. My tastes have tended to drift away from the horror genre, with a few exceptions. But The Fly holds up as entertainment. I think most 80s films are terrible, and people only continue to love them because of nostalgia, and when they revisit them they can’t help but reinhabit their 14 or 15 year old selves experiencing them for the first time. But The Fly has merit in the genre of prophetic sci-fi horror–be careful about your ambitions to unlock knowledge or create new technologies!

Jeff Goldblum is exceptional in his role as a sexy nerd, and still manages to charm after his transformation into a guy in a rubber suit menacing a beautiful lady. Geena Davis is great also, and the chemistry between these two actors really propels the film. John Getz is perfect as the sleazy ex-boyfriend who can’t take a hint. The look of the film remains crisp and slick, and is a precursor to the stylistic flair Cronenberg will develop in later gorgeously shot films like Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, A Dangerous Method, Existenz, Eastern Promises, etc.

The Fly of course references many previous classic films, primarily Frankenstein, but also The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr.
Hyde, etc. Films where the heroes are monsters but are also all-too-human. One detail I’d missed previously occurs when the protagonists have their first overnight dalliance after Goldblum’s initial transformation. Geena Davis is asleep with her hair on the pillow and it is piled up in a column exactly like the hairdo on the Bride of Frankenstein. Made me chuckle.

Surprisingly the special effects hold up well. The computer used to power the teleportation device is likely a Commodore 64 encased in a giant metal box, but it still somehow looks futuristic, and the voice recognition to unlock its programs is a nice prophetic touch.

I’d recommend it if this is anywhere near your field of interest, and would recommend Cronenberg’s stuff to anyone interested in cinema as an art form. He’s worth exploring but the body horror is of course not always easy to endure. The Fly is perhaps my second favorite 80s horror remake–the premier example is of course is John Carpenter’s truly astonishing and completely nihilistic remake of The Thing, which is 1000 times better than E.T. the Extraterrestrial, which totally annhilated it at the box office, but which I now find unwatchable.

When I heard that Guillermo del Toro was producing a horror anthology for Netflix, I was intrigued and hopeful. He’s done some marvelous things, and some OK things–and typically even the not-so-exciting things he’s done are interesting and visually impressive.

I’m not one who typically binges streaming series, because I prefer to absorb an episode before adding another, but I watched 8 episodes of Cabinet of Curiosities in 6 days, which indicates an atypical level of excitement and appreciation.

Not all of the episodes are of the same quality or even really of the same genre–“horror” encapsulates many sub-genres, of course. The first episode is a typical Twilight Zone/Outer Limits morality play, featuring a monstrous protagonist whom karma appropriately dooms. But “Lot 36” is well-acted and well-produced and sets the tone for the series. It was certainly amusing to see Tim Blake Nelson play a villain.

Episode 2 “Graveyard Rats” is more of a cartoonish Evil Dead 2 goofy gore joyride which had my wife squirming and twisting on the couch as we watched together (she didn’t make it past this episode). This is gimmicky slapstick horror, red meat for the masses, but great fun.

The 3rd episode moves to a new level and differentiates del Toro’s series from previous televised anthology horror. You simply could not do what “The Autopsy” does on network TV, and even on most cable channels it would have been too much. I’ll not spoil it, but it’s as if X Files had hired Tom Savini to helm an episode, and F. Murray Abraham is legit in his role.

And then the art direction takes off into delightful and dazzling dimensions with episode 4. “The Outside” is Cronenberg body horror through the lens of early Tim Burton or Coen Bros. It’s hilarious, incisive social commentary, but also deeply disquieting and disgusting. At this point in the series I was sold that something new and profound for horror was happening.

Episode 5 takes H.P. Lovecraft source material and adds Crispin Glover. “Pickman’s Model” the story leaves a lot unsaid, and the re-write of the idea featured here fills in those ambiguities, but it is fantastically dark and there is none of the humor of previous episodes–this is gruesome, merciless cosmic horror. Again, the series reaches new heights and achieves a brutal, shocking finale.

Episode 6 “Dreams in the Witch-House” is another HPL story. I found it slightly less horrid than the previous, but still exceptionally well-crafted. It’s reminiscent of a John Carpenter film from the 70s or 80s (The Fog, for example).

I don’t know what to say about episode 7. “The Viewing” is simply beautiful, and viewing it is a pleasure all its own. There is a Solaris/Blade Runner sci-fi edge here, and the Boogie Nights feel and production quality is magical. I loved every second, and even when the plot falls thin the performances and the look of this episode again take the series to a new frontier. The ending is really only the beginning of the true horror.

The closing episode, “The Murmuring,” is simply beautiful. Mournful and elegiac, this is a classic haunting, where the spirits find a connection to the past experiences of a living protagonist and use her to their advantage. Other classic haunting films (The Shining, The Haunting, The Innocents) are referenced, but the atypical ending is unexpected and quite moving. The source material is a short story by del Toro, who also wrote “Graveyard Rats.”

If you are a fan of horror, whatever your sub-genre preferences, Cabinet of Curiosities has something for you. Prepare to have your spine tingled.

Happy Halloween!