Alien, Jaws, The Thing and other living nightmares

 

Lesser you see, better the fear effect.

    In all of these outstanding movies, the main theme and powerful engine of the plot is the nigtmare monster. Yes, this sort of monster only the dreamer might encounter for real in the deep of his slumber. As a matter of fact, this is primarily a haunted creature for the children’s bad dreams but I don’t exclude that it might also appear in some grown-up’s nightmares. This monster is the scariest of all imaginable monsters because of its ubiquity, its invulnerability and its unadulterated thirst of destruction (in particular human destruction). This monster is always waiting in your back whatever clever schemes you can think of, whatever your physical feats for escaping it. In the end, the dreamer is always the loser. His only way of survive is to wake up.

In the real world, I mean, in the real world of dreams (when you are sleeping), there is no need of a rationale for the presence of this kind of surnatural monster ; the dreamer, especially when young, believes wholeheartidly in it. But that’s another story when you address grown-up and teenager audience, movie-goers for instance. You have to convince them of the reality of the beast. That’s why this genre can only succeed when all the appearances of reality surrounding the creature are proved. Well, in hindsight, the proof turns to be as faked as the monster but for a spectator’s mind and for the time being plunged in the dark room, it is enough. This is why the harsh and grim and rusted Nostromo as a setting is so efficient and why the rude or down-to-earth crew is perfect for this show (when I speak of Alien, it is always the first one by Ridley Scott I consider, the sequels being weaker by an order of magnitude and even by several orders for the very last avatar). When you think of it in retrospect, you can easily spot the phony science that you were given by the wily scenarists but it’s too late, the magic has made its trick ! For instance, still in Alien, there is no way that the face-hugger can pierce the visor of the too curious and too naive astronaut. This kind of visor, for obvious reasons, is almost indestructible and certainly not by some throws of acid. By the way, the sulphuric acid-like-blood is an absolute absurdity, biologically speaking. Is it important ? No. This is a science-fiction film and in science-fiction, the only important word is the latter. All of the features of the monster are uniquely conceived to persuade the viewers of its plausibility, that they are not watching a stupid fantasy story, a children nigtmare. But in reality, this is it, just a children nigthmare thinly disguised in a real serious story. Is it a weakness or a critic ? No, it’s just fine but it’s better if you know it.

In the real world of dreams, these inescapable monsters are, in my knowledge, generally almost indescribable. They are dark, changing, without a clear face. At least, they seem like that in the awakening. If someone asks the dreamer or if the dreamer asks himself what the nightmare monster lookliked, he can only answer with some lovecraftian adjectives of his liking like sinister, atrocious, dreadful, vile, nameless, unspeakable and often slimy. Therefore, a rule of this genre, if we want to succeed, is to hide the monster in the shades of the background the longer you can. That was brought to perfection in Alien since you never see the somewhat disappointing snake-humanoïd creature in its entirety before the last shots, when the film comes to an end (in fact there is another good reason to drown the monster in darkness : hide the puppet’s strings and other special effects). Another rule to add a « turn of the screw » is to set in the plot in the most cloistered scenery. A space ship in the outer space is the absolute cloistering thing, a base in Antarctica is slightly inferior in term of confinement but still very good (in an aside, submarines, bathyscaphes and undersea stations are almost as perfect as space ships in term of confinement but I can’t find a memorable film with a nightmare monster in this context ; well, I gave a cheap tip for future scenarists). Therefore for all these reasons, in my sense, Alien is the ultimate film of nightmare monsters.

In spite of the appearances, Jaws follows the same pattern in its broad lines (I only consider the Spielberg’s film here). The undersea serves as a cover of darkness for the monster, even while it’s hot and sunny everywhere else (of course, the scenery is a seaside resort during the summer season). The contrast between the casual sunny background, the happy vacationners and the unquenchable bloody monster is nevertheless a small feature of originality in this dark genre (now become usual but never as well crafted as in the original). The end departs of the rule of the genre because the monster should never be destructed once and for all : that’s its weakest point. I repeat, in these nightmare monster films, you should only escape of the creature when the dream stops, that is, when the lights come back in the dark room. In this regard, The Thing has the most powerful ending : everybody dies or will soon die. And that’s right : you can’t hope for survival against this sort of monster.

Why ? Why you can’t have a glimmer of hope in this genre ? Because the monster is both a symbol and a reminder. It is the symbol of death, under another disguise than the grim reaper with the black houppelande. And you can’t escape death : this is a fact. Now, I wish to propose my theory on the subject, for the sake of entertainment. As I said, the real root of this genre is the nigtmare monster which populates our dreams, especially when we are young. I believe that some dreams have a powerful function of warning on the dreamer. What’s the warning in this case ? Very simple. The children and the youth in general have the unshakable belief that they will live forever, that they are immortal. And they have this strong conviction because they still know without knowing that they know it that the spirit in them is immortal. The spirit, yes, but not their soul. So it is cautious and advisable for young people to have periodically this sort of brutal reminder.

A true nightmare, in French.

The masters of nightmare : Hodgson and Lovecraft (in French)

A different type of nightmare through madness by Gene Wolfe (in English).