The Fourth Kind

Posted on July 2, 2009 by admin

A pseudo-docudrama that tries to document strange occurrences of alien abduction that may explain the unusually high number of deaths and disappearances of residents in Nome, Alaska. This is a postmodern movie that really takes the fiction/non-fiction blur to the next level. Whereas, Paranormal Activity plays the fake reality game of Blair Witch and Cloverfield, the “found footage” genre, that we all know is not real, but we pretend it is so it makes it seem scarier. But The Fourth Kind creates fake documentary footage and then tells us through the lead actress, Milla Jovavich AS Milla Jovavich and the director as himself that this is a movie that is recreating real documentary research by a real psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (similar to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries). The director then juxtaposes “real documentary” footage of interviews next to the re-enactment with the actors to give the illusion that this really really happened and they are just re-enacting it. Wow, talk about taking the postmodern notion of everything being fiction to the next level. This movie lies to the audience in telling us this is a re-enactment and these are real tapes that they based their movie on. So it is a fiction of a fiction, a story of a story.

TFK uses all the formulaic elements of alien encounters that have been claimed to be true since the 1940s, assuming the classification used by Spielberg with his Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Only the Fourth Kind is not mere contact, but abduction, complete with butt probes and aliens with big owl eyes. But since they use the “found footage” documentary style, it becomes a focus on story over effects that we have come to be oversaturated with through the Spielberg phenomenon. This is another element that makes it seem more “real” is that it is not splashy or having any real effects. So this is all about what we do NOT see versus what we do see. In fact, even the videotaped abduction scenes become visually distorted (though strangely, not the audio ☺) due to the presence of the alien psychically in the body of the abuductee.

What I found most interesting was that the movie uses the cliché “Chariots of the Gods” ancient astronauts theory that the gods of prescientific cultures like the Sumerians, were simply aliens from space misinterpreted as “gods.” We are told of the hieroglyphs of the Sumerians that show rocketships and astronauts with breathing apparatuses, all the usual old crap. And during one taped sequence we discover that the beings that are taped entering Milla’s room speak in the ancient Sumerian dialect in “non-human” voices (are you following? – the Sumerians – the first writers of words, were taught language by these aliens). And the rough translations are incomplete and can only catch words like “Our creation… destroy,” and lastly and most importantly, “I am God.” Milla is shown praying to Jesus at the very beginning of the movie. Yet apart from these two ambiguous moments, NOT A SINGLE REFERENCE is made at all to the supernatural.

I am not sure if the filmmaker is aware of it or not, but everything that occurred, including the alien abduction moments of levitation and jerking around, Ancient PAGAN Sumerian voices, the alien language of claiming to be God, are all elements of demon possession. It’s almost as if he entirely missed a great twist that this is not alien abduction but demon possession. I say this because there is not a word of consideration in the entire movie that this could be supernatural, so I think he may not have realized that these are classic symptoms of demon possession. Instead he opts out for a mysterious ending of unexplained phenomenon under audio tapes of allegedly real UFO sightings. Great potential for a unique perspective on a cliché subject squandered with a dissatisfying ending of mystery.

Paranormal Activity

Posted on June 2, 2009 by admin

A fake “reality” documentary in the tradition of The Blair Witch Project, only this time it’s real supernatural evil. Micah and his live-in girlfriend Katie decide to videotape the strange haunting experiences that have followed Katie since she was young. So we see it through the eyes of their camera as they record it all, including their sleeping at night. It is a straightforward and simple demon story that builds from the sounds and noises, through the “open doorway” of a Ouija board, and all the way to the possession at the end. This story reinforces the reality of supernatural evil.

I had to change my original understanding of the movie’s worldview because I had missed one shot in the movie that made a big difference in the meaning. Originally, I had said that “The only two references to God occur once when they research an exorcism on the internet which remains a distant story to no effect, and once at a climactic moment where Katie clutches a crucifix in her hands till she bleeds – also to no effect.” But I was wrong because I missed a shot that occurred shortly after this. Micah says, “I’ve had enough of this” and he tosses something in the fireplace to burn. Well, I had thought he tossed the Ouji board pointer into the fire, but a friend told me it was the wooden cross. BIG BIG difference.

Because it is after this symbolic discarding of the cross of Christ that the demon has the power to invade their lives even more so. A shallow approach to God is useless and that without a real connection to the living God in Christ, we have no hope of overpowering such evil. After all, Micah is portrayed as expressing that he is not afraid of this entity and he can fight it by himself. And in the end, without the power of God, he ultimately cannot.

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

Posted on June 2, 2009 by admin

Darren is a high school student with a best friend, Steve, who gets him in trouble, and who experiences existential angst in a typical suburban family that repeats the mantra of boredom to him, “a productive life. College, job family, college, job family.” His dread is compounded by the belief that “we’re all gonna end up in the same place (dead) whether we like it or not.” When he visits a circus freak show in his town, he discovers it is led by a “good” vampire who doesn’t want to kill people, just suck their blood a little. Turns out that a band of “bad” vampires who still kill people are trying to start a war with these “good” vampires in order to get some real blood spilt. Darren becomes a half vampire in order to save his best friend from dying, but unfortunately that friend gets caught up with the bad vampires. So we now have best friends on opposite sides of this building war.

But the real theme behind this story is that of determinism and free will, namely, that biology is not destiny. We create ourselves through our choices: Existentialism. Early on, we hear Steve talk about his “bad blood,” which is confirmed by the good vampire later. And as he says that, we are taken on a cinematic journey into his very blood cells to see that there are evil “elements” in his DNA. We hear the phrases, “Destiny, we all have a destiny,” “It’s all been written down in a book.” After Steve goes “bad vampire” he tells, Darren, “Too late, I have my destiny, you have yours.”

However, the tension of free will is woven in throughout as we hear the lead vampire, John C. Reilly, state, “I may write the script, but the characters seem to do what they want.” And Darren is told, “You seem to have a lot of free will” because he is able to avoid drinking blood even though it will ultimately kill him. Finally, when Darren struggles with whether or not he will become bad because he is a vampire, his monkey girl girlfriend tells him the theme tagline: “Being human is not about what you are, it’s about who you are.” Darren concludes, “Just cause I’m a vampire, doesn’t mean I’m blood thirsty.” Thus the film argues against Original Sin in that it concludes we can have control over our natures to do good or evil and there is no inherent evil to our nature, merely natures that can be used for good or evil (thus, the good and evil vampires, a similar concept to the Twilight series).

Another way of looking at it: “What you are” is an argument for identity being rooted in an essence or substance (biology), but “Who you are” is identity being rooted in personhood or free will.

There is some comfort here for those of us who consider ourselves freaks in society and don’t fit in as we are shown that everyone has their place and special purpose to perform, though of course, we must choose to do so.

Monsters Vs. Aliens

Posted on May 2, 2009 by admin

Susan Murphy is struck by a meteor and grows to be 50 feet tall, which, needless to say, jeopardizes her wedding plans with a television weather reporter. Also, she is captured by the military and imprisoned with other monsters they’ve captured over the years. Susan, as the “50 foot woman” meets the Missing Link, Dr. Cockroach and B.O.B., which are homages to the monster movies of the 50s and 60s: the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly and the Blob. Meanwhile, a hostile alien robot has come to earth to “extract” the special substance that made Susan grow big and strong, so that he can become powerful and take over the earth, destroy it and start his own civilization of clones of himself. This bad guy alien is an expression of colonialism that imperialistically exploits other “worlds” for their natural resources and then destroys the inhabitants in order to make it his home.

This appears to be a feminist woman’s empowerment story. We follow the journey of Susan, who begins her story as a weaker woman who gets her self worth from supporting or following a man, her fiancé. The fiancé is a self-obsessed man only concerned with his own career, and not with Susan’s concerns at all. So when Susan becomes huge and even saves the city by destroying a robot, the fiancé breaks off the engagement because as he says, he can’t be in someone else’s shadow, and her shadow is particularly big. In other words, he wants a woman in HIS shadow and any “powerful” woman, or a woman who has become “big” (an obvious metaphor for a successful career woman) is too intimidating for him. He perceives that the relationship exists to serve his interests, not hers, a common accusation against “patriarchy.”

Susan realizes that her fiancé is a jerk and was only concerned with himself, so she muses to her monster friends that she doesn’t need a man to accomplish great things in life, after all, it was she who fought and destroyed an alien robot, not HIM. She stands to her full 50 foot height with clenched fists of empowerment (lacking only the Virginia Slims cigarette due to Hollywood political correctness) and says, “I’m not going to short change myself ever again.” And at the climax, when she has the chance to “become normal” by becoming small again, she chooses to become 50 feet again to save her monster friends, who have become more important to her. So at the end, when her fiancé asks for her back (for obvious selfish reasons again, to benefit his career), she stands him up and makes a fool of him and walks away, not needing a man as a fish needs not a bicycle.

Pandorum

Posted on April 2, 2009 by admin

The world overpopulates and sends a ship of thousands of people to a distant planet to start over. But in the midst of the hyperspace sleep, some of them come to and realize that there are creatures hunting and killing survivors around the huge space ship. Turns out these creatures are some of the original passengers, who were accidentally mutated by being fed strange nuclear chemicals and turned them into predator monsters. Pandorum refers to the psychological state of coming out of hypersleep and becoming so disoriented that you go crazy and do things like killing everyone on board by jettisoning their pods into space. Of course, this is what happens to the captain who argues with the hero at the end about destroying lives on board. The captain who becomes a villain in his pandorum state says, “It’s easy when you free yourself from the chains of morality.” The theme of survival versus sacrifice and these mutated creatures are pure predators and the humans must save the rest of the hypersleep passengers on the ship by resetting the nuclear reactor on the ship. The story seems to be comparing pure survival and predatory nature with a moral approach to being human.

Zombieland: Love in the Post-Apocalypse

Posted on March 2, 2009 by admin

We got to talking about this on the Hollywood Worldviews Group, and I watched it again. So here is the post I wrote on it a while back, with a couple additions.

A standard zombie storyline about a few living humans trying to survive after most of America is overrun with a zombie apolcalypse after a virus outbreak.

Particularly, it is the story of Columbus, a kid who is trying to get to his home town in Ohio to see if any of his family has survived. Along the way, he picks up loner, Woody Harrelson and a couple of girls, one with which he falls in love.

The story follows Columbus as a young nerd who has managed to survive by following “rules,” of survival such as good cardio (to outrun the zombies), always check back seats of cars, always wear seatbelts and “double tap” (always make sure to shoot a zombie in the head to finish him off for sure), and never be a hero, it gets you killed. The point being that these are all rules of self protection because Columbus is living fearfully in life and unwilling to take a risk. Zombies are the metaphor for what we become when we become loners in this world to protect ourselves. Everyone avoids personal names because they don’t want to get too involved in case they have to kill them as zombies later. So everyone goes by the name of the town they come from.

When he meets Witchita, the girl he falls for, she draws him out to take risks like not wearing a seatbelt. Turns out she likes bad boys, so Columbus tries to rise to the occasion. Of course, he comes to realize his family is not alive so he makes this new group his family as he says in voiceover. This seems to be a metaphor for leaving behind traditional notions of family in a corrupted world.

But in the finale, the boys and girls split up, but Columbus realizes that he has to “go after the girl,” to seek her out by putting aside his fears and self protection and ultimately says, “Some rules you gotta break such as ‘don’t be a hero,'” and he becomes a hero by saving the girls and ultimately his ability to love. And of course, the girl whispers her real name in his ear at the end, signifying that they make the human connection needed to love another person.

Columbus becomes a man by putting aside his desire to survive and self protection and by risking himself sacrificially for another. Sacrifice over survival, but no real sense of danger in the entire movie.

The Wicker Man

Posted on November 2, 2006 by admin

Horror. A police officer investigates a missing child on an obscure island of Puget Sound, only to discover the island is controlled by a mysterious pagan cult. This is a story that shows Feminism/neo-paganism/Gaia Earth worship as evil. Hollywood always shows patriarchy as the oppressive subjugation of women by abusive men. But this movie is rather unique in that it communicates the opposite: that matriarchy is the oppressive subjugation of men by abusive women. In this story, little school girls are taught to recite that the purist form of the male is the phallic symbol. Men’s tongues appear to be cut out and they are reduced to breeders and physical laborers who are forcefully uneducated. These men-haters of this isolated isle disparage patriarchy and then attempt to replace one form of perceived oppression of women with their own oppression of men. The writer/director, Neil LaBute uses this commune to make his point that the “earth” religion that Wiccans, witches and radical feminists all point to as the glorious original pristine Garden of Eden is actually a Garden of Snakes that is rooted in the same human sacrifice that all paganism is ultimately rooted in. A sacrifice that is a twisted parody of the need for atonement that the living God has embedded into the universe. This is a unique and original voice. Put into Pomo lingo: This story is a subversive narrative that delegitmizes radical feminism and its neopagan counterpart as gynophilic male-hating imperialism.

The Descent

Posted on September 2, 2006 by admin

Horror. A group of women go spelunking in an underground cave and fall victim to evolved human predators crawling around in the dark. This is the same exact story as The Cave, which I blogged on last year. But this one is better. The premise is just as ridiculous because it maintains that some humans evolved deep in caverns into blind grocking spiderlike creatures without any real humanity, and yet, they somehow had access to the surface in order to find prey to catch and eat. But alas, it’s only a horror movie and I don’t consider that all that bad of a contradiction for horror.

The point of the movie is much deeper. It is about what makes us human or not, and the answer is not hopeful. For in evolution, there is no ultimate difference. We are all reducible to our animal natures, our biology. And that is what this film suggests. There is a dilemma between the heroine and the “action woman” of the piece. Evidently, the “action woman” had an affair with the heroine’s husband before he got killed in a car accident. The action woman regrets it to some degree, though not totally, since she still carries around a token of the husband’s betrayed lust in the form of a piece of jewelry. Anyway, as the monsters start to attack, the action woman and the heroine turn into battling mommas, while the others fall apart. Only the heroine turns a bit more bloody in her rage.

So action momma refuses to leave when she finds the exit until she goes back for the heroine. This is her redemption or human conscience and guilt over her friend. Unfortunately, the heroine has discovered her friend’s betrayal and when she shows up at the escape exit, and have the last chance to leave, the heroine wounds the action woman and leaves her to be eaten by the monsters. This to me is a clear attempt to be consistent with an atheist evolutionary worldview that claims that morality is an arbitrary social convention, since these monsters, separated from the rest of society simply are reduced to survival of the fittest. The movie could have been a heroic affirmation of humanity if, at that moment of revelation between the women, the heroine would forgive “action woman,” and they escape. Because you see that would be what would make them different from the raw animal tooth and claw of their predators. The ability to forgive would be the sense of morality that humanizes us, that is, separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom as created in the image of God. That is what would give the characters their true “victory” to survive beyond the beasts. But instead, the storytellers chose to have the heroine capitulate to revenge and murder, to in fact become like the beasts that were chasing them.

This materialist mythology spoils the movie for me and shows just how unsatisfying atheist evolutionary storytelling is if one is consistent with one’s worldview. There is no heroism or hope or atonement, there is only survival of the fittest and revenge.

The Omen

Posted on June 2, 2006 by admin

Horror. An American Ambassador in Europe discovers that he is raising the Antichrist as his son. Okay, first off, the only thing I really liked about this was Liev Schreiber, but he’s no Gregory Peck. And Julia Stiles is certainly no Lee Remick, in fact Julia was terrible in this movie. This movie was a scene for scene remake of the 30 year old original. I will rent the 30 year version again and again. I will never see this remake again. The old one is scarier, the death scenes are better, the kid is scarier. In this one, he is just cute. A cute Antichrist. I guess one might argue that is the most devilish to appear to be an angel of light, but it don’t work for me. Every thing about the original is better so why bother seeing this one. My first response was that this is the Christian answer to the Da Vinci Code. It’s a studio movie conspiracy theory that elevates the Bible as true, even though I don’t believe in the eschatology of it. But after thinking about it more, I really think that the eschatology, the Dispensationalism whose entire end times scenario is now enshrined in that glorious piece of art and theological acumen, Left Behind, is possibly more destructive than the Da Vinci Code. Why? Because it has created a claim that the Bible is true because all this stuff is supposed to happen, especially within our generation, but it is not happening, and it will never happen because the book of Revelation was a cryptic prophecy that was fulfilled already in the first century. Anyway, so now Christians are awaiting the great rapture to take them all away to avoid pain and suffering, and it simply isn’t going to happen. And the longer it continues to not happen, the more unreliable the Bible will appear to unbelievers, not because the Bible is actually unreliable, but because certain silly escapist Christian interpretations set themselves up as the only true interpretations and continue to make predictions, claim that their homespun predictions correspond to the Bible, as they have for over 30 years, and those predictions continue to fail to happen. Give it up, people. Read Last Days Madness by Gary DeMar, I’m tellin’ ya. You won’t regret it. It will set your eschatology straight.

Silent Hill

Posted on May 20, 2006 by admin

Horror. A woman ends up in a strange ghost town trying to find her daughter and rescue her from some bizarre religious fanatics and ghosts. This film was antichrist. I say that because it basically makes the point that a town had a fire along time ago that killed most of the people and it happened because of some “fundamentalist” type Christians who were judgmental witch burners caused it all. Gee, where have we seen that stereotype a hundred times before? Well, there are Christian references everywhere, like crosses, Bible verses about “judging angels” and judgment according to our deeds. A slogan on the walls, “God, Loyalty, Home, Country.” These religious people always talk about sin and sinners and “purge” the evil of sin by burning children as sacrifices, etc. The only good thing is that the leader of the sect is called “Christabella,” which in my mind works against the typical accusation of “patriarchal” domination of Christian churches. Be that as it may, it was a horrible festival of hate speech against Christian faith as cruel, judgmental, oppressors because they believe in sin, judgment and evil as wrong. The ending is just stupid and doesn’t make sense. The heroine and her daughter end up as ghosts themselves. But how, why?