October 2017 Highlights Part 3 - How Ellie Was Always a Robot (with James Karen, Craig Wasson, and Tom Atkins)

Part 3 – How Ellie Was Always a Robot (with James Karen, Craig Wasson, and Tom Atkins)

           I can't do October without a small, handpicked set of movies, and one fun aspect of this particular set is that it splits off into marathons that showcase the work of some of the actors that helped make me the horror fan I am today. This year was no different, and I kicked things off right away with James Karen. 

James Karen

Getting the flying Superman font he deserves in Invaders from Mars.

           James Karen became one of my favorite faces of horror in, of course, Poltergeist, playing the small but significant role of Teague. Even at the age of four, I didn't need him to appear in more than the few small scenes he did to understand how important he was to the story. With a smile on his face and profits in his heart, he was the villain of the movie. It was a small and simple part to play, but I never forgot his nonchalant attitude about paving over the final resting place of hundreds of departed souls. I particularly never forgot the feeling I had when he conveniently appeared to bear witness to what he and his kind had done. He barely takes up any screen time, but when he does, you are locked on his expression: his shock, his disbelief, and his complete breakdown of remorse. He never believed that something like this could have happened. Who would? But, in this world, there are consequences for tampering with the laws of heaven.

           Invaders From Mars, as I said in my Tobe Hooper entry, was a movie I hadn't seen in quite a few years, but it is very likely to be an annual October watch for James Karen. Invaders doesn't take itself too seriously, and James Karen has excellent range for comedy. Here, he gives us perfect deadpan as General Climet Wilson, a real hard-ass but still open to giving a kid top level military clearance as if we were in a Gamera film. That childlike playfulness with the plot gives James Karen plenty of room to shine. General Wilson is an anomaly like many of the characters in the movie. You typically expect the military leader of a horror movie to be over-the-top with discipline and an understanding of the risks of combat, but James Karen plays his part with more compassion. In some ways, he is like a surrogate father to our young hero while Karen Black takes the part of a surrogate mother.

"Say, Dick, did you know that Invaders from Mars features both James Karen and Karen Black?"
"Is that right? You know, if Karen Black married James Karen, she'd be Karen Karen?"
"Say goodnight, Dick."
"Goodnight, Dick."

           In the horror category and perhaps his entire career, James Karen gave his finest performance in Return of the Living Dead. His complete nervous breakdown here feels like a gift as it gives us one window into Teague's future after the credits rolled on Poltergeist. His experiences break him, and he spends a great deal of the movie screaming and suffering. With style. Not only does the plot not take itself seriously like Invaders from Mars, but Return of the Living Dead is pure horror comedy. This is the extreme end of the spectrum on the other side of serious roles like Mulholland Drive and even Poltergeist, and Karen shows that he can do it all. His character is silly and more fragile than he initially makes himself out to be, and he is the standout role of the cast for me (even more than the graveyard dance, which is saying something) with a tragic turn that brings a tear to my eye and makes me cringe at the same time. I'm more familiar with Return of the Living Dead Part II since I saw it a few times more in television reruns and on MonsterVision, but the first installment is the best. Both movies have basically the same plot, but Karen brings it every time. 

Craig Wasson

           One of my earliest horror movie memories is the amazing tale of the supernatural that is Ghost Story. There are so many people to talk about in this movie: Fred Astaire, John Houseman, and the hauntingly perfect talent of Alice Krige, to name only a few. But we wouldn't have the story without Craig Wasson to tie it all together. He has the odd pleasure of playing a dual role as estranged twin brothers; one is the sensitive and struggling professor we see for most of the movie while the other is a rough businessman who suffers a terrible fate in the opening scene. The surviving brother seems to waffle at everything in life except for one thing: he means to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding a woman who seems to exist outside of time. His horrified expressions are priceless as he inches toward the truth.

Granted, he seems a little more concerned than the scene seems to ask for here.

Wasson's character here continues to discover at almost every turn that he isn't really necessary. Clouded by doubt, he can't hold on to what matters in his life, and he always seems to be a stepping stone for everyone he encounters. Inheriting a wrathful family curse doesn't help matters.

           I didn't get around to watching it in October, but I did watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors earlier this year and have to include it in my appreciation of Craig Wasson. Once again, Wasson is a professional investigating something supernatural, this time a psychiatrist discovering that the curse of Freddy Krueger is very real. Despite the great Patricia Arquette and the returning talent of Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp, Wasson is a standout for me here. Maybe it's a little sentimental, but he becomes a heroic figure here and just as much the essential thread tying everything together as he was in Ghost Story. He is a face of authority and disbelief, but he becomes a true believer.

           Last, but not least there is Brian De Palma's Body Double. There might be a bit of an argument about this as a horror movie, but I never felt like this one fit any particular genre. It is a blend of horror, thriller, and outright parody at times as it takes a number of potshots at the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, particularly the acting community. Wasson does something he does best here as a character actor, playing another downtrodden soul forced to face fear and mystery, but this is, by far, my favorite Wasson performance on the list because he is unmistakably the star of the picture. And he has to be good because his character is not all that likable. We have some sympathy for him in the beginning, but he is not meant to be liked because, in the caricature-drawn world of Body Double, it seems that everyone is already tainted. Wasson's character can't seem to help but undermine his own altruism as he keeps giving in to his voyeuristic urges. He walks through one door of a moral dilemma after another and keeps getting himself into trouble, at times falling too deeply into character along the way, and somehow he uses his acting talents to fail upward and tie the pieces of the puzzle together. Wasson is always good at tying things together, even when his characters in some of these movies seem too flawed to manage it. 

Tom Atkins

           I don't think I need to say much about Tom Atkins. He's Tom friggin' Atkins, and he is a horror staple. Tom Atkins is the man in horror who is washed-out, often boozed-up, and thinks he has seen too much of the world. He has experience with some ugly things, but he is wrong to think he has seen it all. When the supernatural evils and the monsters of the world are revealed, he is one of the movie badasses willing to put up a real fight.

           My first experience with Tom Atkins was in the bookend segment of Creepshow. I don't need it to be October to put on Creepshow. I have watched it at least twice this year (once in memory of the passing of George Romero) and typically watch it a couple of times a year besides. This was where I discovered Tom Atkins as a horror necessity. He introduces the Creepshow audience to a character of horror reality: an abusive parent. This puts things in the right mood for some tension and fear, but it also makes the comedic nature of the interior segments stand out a bit more because it takes the edge off of reality just a bit. That is my take on it at least, coming from a dysfunctional family myself. It makes the tagline ring true to me as Creepshow most certainly is the most fun I have ever had being scared. Then, in the end, if we have managed to forget where we started, Tom Atkins is there one more time for the final payoff. And it is worth it.

           As much as I adore the work of Larry Cohen, I didn't get around to seeing Maniac Cop for the first time until this October. Better late than never, but the presence of Tom Atkins here makes the shame of overlooking it that much stronger. I could tell myself that Cohen only wrote it and did not direct to make myself feel about 1% better, but even that does not make me fee any better because I went to the effort of tracking down almost every movie Cohen wrote and still managed to miss this one. I have yet to see a story Cohen wrote that I did not like, but I always have that nagging little wish in back of my head that he had directed all of them. But I'm not here to talk about Larry Cohen. I could do that all day. This is about Tom Atkins, and he is at his best when he is playing the grizzled detective on the trail of a killer. Cohen's writing is timeless and relevant in a world terrorized by a murderer with a badge, and it is a palpable display of Atkins' talent to see him standing with seniority over a young Bruce Campbell. I will have to give this movie another look in the very near future.

           Atkins delivers a similar performance as a washed-up cop in Night of the Creeps, a favorite that I had not seen in quite a few years before approaching it again this October. I watched it as a follow-up to The Blob 1988, and they make a perfect pair as well-scripted spoofs of 1950s drive-in horror (even better as a three-way with Slither). Night of the Creeps is peak Tom Atkins. He has seen everything, carries some dark secrets, and is ready to drown the rest of his life in liquor until a new mystery breathes some life into him again. It doesn't get much better than this... but it does because I would not dare to omit the cult opus that made Tom Atkins a legendary face of horror.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (or How Ellie Was Always a Robot)

           It took years for a lot of people to come around to the opinion I have had since I was five years old: Halloween III: Season of the Witch is an all-time horror classic. Most people are unwilling to accept change. This seems to be the greatest hurdle that Halloween III had to jump, and it stumbled in the public eye for the most part. Where was Michael Myers? Where was Jamie Lee Curtis? Where was Donald Pleasance? This was no sequel to the previous films, and that probably was the nail in its critical coffin. If it had been released simply as Season of the Witch, however, I wonder how much notice it would have received. It might have been forgotten quickly or, as I would like to hope, been provided a little more of the appreciation it receives today. It is on my short list of comfort horror movies with Creepshow, Poltergeist, Halloween, and Halloween II, and I can and often do watch them all a couple of times a year or more. I have Halloween III droning in the background right now.

           The plot of Season of the Witch is absolutely, one hundred percent bonkers. A synopsis does it absolutely no justice. The exposition news network tells us that an entire slab of Stonehenge has gone missing. Just like that. After ranting about death and destruction like a lunatic, an old man is murdered in his hospital bed in one of the most memorable kill scenes I have seen in a horror movie, and the story continues to deliver unique death scenes as it progresses. Enter Tom Atkins, Dr. Dan Challis. He is not yet the washed-up cop of Maniac Cop or Night of the Creeps, but he is well on his way toward it as a hard-drinking divorced doctor. He can't let go of the mystery, and he takes leave from the hospital to help the old man's daughter investigate her father's death at the source of it all: the Silver Shamrock mask factory in the small Irish town of Santa Mira, California. Santa Mira is a place that seems frozen in time, and one cannot be too sure if anything or anyone there is real. The pieces to the puzzle begin to paint a picture of a prank that goes back to the very origins of Halloween itself. And there are robots. Lots of high-functioning, wind-up toy robots that look like people but are capable of superhuman acts of murder and mayhem.

           Pure bonkers, and I love it. I have seen it so many times, however, that I began to play around with some elements of the story. One little theory I developed very early was about Ellie, and it opened my eyes to what I consider the secret plot of Halloween III. Around the age of three or four, when I began to develop my interest in movies, familiar faces were a strong draw for me from one movie to another, and it is part of the reason for the theme of this entry. One of my favorite early childhood movies (which, sadly, did not hold up so well into adulthood) was Going Ape. It was a simple little comedy with apes, and I loved it as a little kid. It was also the first time I saw Stacey Nelkin. I recognized her immediately in Halloween III, and this caused me to pay particular attention to her as Ellie Grimbridge. From the beginning, something about her seems slightly off. She is the grieving next of kin, but she is drawn to Dr. Challis at the same time, dare I say deliberately. She seems to know where exactly to find Dr. Challis when she wants to pique his curiosity in every possible way as both a romantic interest and someone looking for the same answers, and she lures him to Santa Mira to discover what happened to her "father." I put the word "father" in quotes because I don't think Ellie ever was a human being. I think she was always a robot from beginning to end, a plant to throw off suspicion, and there are plenty of clues to suggest it.

           There is a bit of a Westworld vibe to the town of Santa Mira. You see what appear to be normal small-town folk, but the lines blur if you try to figure out who is real and who is not. We get the sense that some of these are real people. Many of them have to be, but mortality is the only way we know for sure. There is plenty of that to go around, but further confusing the issue is our villain Conal Cochran, played to perfection by Dan O'Herlihy. When he reveals his secrets, we also are not entirely sure if many of the people in his employ are robots or cultists that have achieved the same sort of semi-immortality that he seems to have. The small assortment of clues could take the viewer in any direction. Most would dismiss the background characters outright as insignificant. They are all a part of this evil scheme, human or otherwise, so why do they matter? Cochran himself tells us why they all matter. He tells his story about perfecting his robots. They can blend in with society, but how authentically and how deviously? One of them sneezes to provide an example, leading us to wonder if a few of the underlings that speak to Cochran in the secret laboratory and at the scene of the "misfire" are human cultists or robots capable of speech. It is revealed that all of the factory workers are from outside Santa Mira, so how can we be sure about their true identities as human or robot? Cochran loves a good joke, but how many jokes was he playing at the same time? I think there was one joke no one ever got, and that was Ellie, so perfect in every detail that no one would suspect that she was not what she seemed: a seductive robot designed specifically to bring Challis to Santa Mira.

"Aren't you the least bit tired?"
"No."
"Wait. How old are you?"
"Relax. I'm older than I look."
As old as an antique grandfather clock, maybe? Hey, does anyone else hear ticking?

           Records can be manipulated, and Cochran demonstrates behind the scenes that he has reach well beyond Santa Mira. His cult likely is spread across the globe and has spies placed everywhere, but Cochran sends his clockwork men out to handle a few delicate situations. They perform their tasks and then dispose of themselves, if necessary, without leaving a trace of human evidence. It seems unlikely that any of them could get from one place to another without being able to avoid some suspicion. Despite their strength, they are proven to be as fragile as human beings in many ways. Simply piercing their skin would reveal the truth about them, so Cochran wasn't joking when he said that he had perfected his techniques. He had to. I don't think Harry Grimbridge ever had a daughter. It was a convenient means to check for any other loose ends. She could have been a well-placed next of kin to identify Harry's body and to make sure that the police had no sufficient evidence to find the truth about his killer, or perhaps Harry's real daughter was replaced earlier. Perhaps Harry went to Santa Mira because his daughter no longer seemed like his daughter. Perhaps his Kevin McCarthy-esque Body Snatchers breakdown in the first scene was another clue. The first wave of cleaners could do their job, but perhaps Cochran wanted a little extra insurance (and perhaps a bit of added fun) with a second wave of robotic spies sent to replace some of the people closest to the store owners purchasing and distributing his masks. Perhaps Ellie was a member of that second wave, not simply a young woman with some clear-cut daddy issues but a fully functioning machine designed to fool even a family member.

           Ellie seeks Challis out, questioning him about her "father" and looking for any information Challis might have gotten before Harry was eliminated. When he answers her with a lie, you might dismiss it right away as the sign of stress in the relationship between Ellie and Harry, but what if this was all her primary programming needed? If Harry never had a daughter and Ellie was a robot from the start, then the lie Challis told made it even more obvious that he knew nothing. But Challis does know something, and he stops her from walking away. The movie could have ended right here and the torch passed to someone else or no one at all, but Challis tells Ellie the truth. He tells her Harry's last words. "They're going to kill us all."

Secondary Programming: Sherlock initiated.

           Cochran is a confident man. He is a step ahead of everything. He is winning. For all intents and purposes, he already has won. Men like Cochran, however, suffer from one fatal flaw: the Bond villain flaw. Cochran cannot enjoy the fruits of his labor unless he can share it with someone he deems at least very close to his own intellect. He needs a Sherlock to his Moriarty, a Batman to his Joker. Challis is a doctor, a man of intelligence and talent in his community, but he has to be tested. How far does he want to go with his investigation? Is he prone to impulse and rushing things, or is he a patient man? Ellie is the robotic femme fatale designed to see how intelligent men like Challis tick, so to speak, and to draw them into Cochran's web. At one point, it looks like she is drinking a Coca-Cola, but does the liquid truly pass her lips? We only see Ellie alone and exhibiting human behavior once: her shower scene. Perhaps she is a normal human taking a shower, or maybe she is taking a hot shower to give her robotic body the appearance of giving off body heat for what happens next. Hey, even Austin Powers was fooled by a female robot, so who is to say that Challis didn't fall for the same trick?

           The major question about Ellie's true identity is her disappearance and supposed replacement. Cochran explains that the processing and construction takes time, but there supposedly is an Ellie robot ready to go almost immediately? This seems unlikely, and you could chalk it up either to a plot hole of convenience or proof that Ellie disappears to be debriefed when Cochran is ready to share his story with Challis. After the "demonstration" of flashing lights, crickets, snakes, and brutal death, there is a shared and unspoken look between them, as if Challis is saying that Cochran won't get away with this. Cochran, without a word, gestures with a smile that he already has gotten away with it. Just like a Bond villain, Cochran has Challis bound and confined in a room with no adequate security, and there is one point at which it seems as though Cochran is waiting to be informed that Challis has escaped. The first wave pursues Challis, but the first wave already has been proven to be ineffective in this case or, possibly, deliberately using nonlethal force because Cochran wants Challis alive. Does Cochran expect Challis to escape with "Ellie," or are that final smile and slow clap the confirmation that Challis was the worthy adversary Cochran had wanted? Either way, Cochran never loses that smile, even when it seems like his plans have failed. The seizure-death-inducing commercial is set to air across the country and perhaps the world, and Cochran also knows that Challis is about to discover the other, deadly joke that Cochran has been playing all along. Cochran really is the king of the practical joke. 

Well done, my Sherlock. Well done, indeed, but the joke isn't over yet.

It's fun to play around with movies. Next time, I dive into one of my favorite parts of Halloween: horror hosts and the late-night local television horror broadcasts that provided much of the horror and movie influence that this little insomniac '80s child needed to grow.