Book to Movie: Dance of the Dead (2005)

Book to Movie: Dance of the Dead (2005)
From the television mini-series, Masters of Horror
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Teleplay by Richard Christian Anderson

Richard Christian Matheson, son of horror writer extraordinaire Richard Matheson took one of dad’s more riveting short stories, expanded it, and made it into one of the finer episodes of this superb television series, Masters of Horror.

In young Matheson’s vision, we get flashbacks of World War III and a biochemical agent that kills or horribly disfigures those whom it contacts. Peggy has flashbacks to her sister’s birthday party when such an attack occurred and many of her friends were killed. When the attack comes, Peggy’s mother takes her two daughters into their home and locks the doors. The two young girls are forced to watch as The Fiz as it’s called, falls on their friends and neighbors and kills them.

All grown up to the sage age of 16, Peggy helps her mother tend to their diner in a rural town. World War III is over, but not much society or structure remains. The streets are essentially lawless (as in Matheson’s story). Young Matheson throws in an added element. Bandits rob people of their blood not for medical purposes, but for something vile and morally rancid.

Two blood thieves catch an old couple out for a walk and rob the woman of her blood while beating the old man. They then travel with their exceptionally slutty girlfriends to Peggy’s little diner.

Three of the group act as obnoxious and as intimidating as possible. One of the two young men, with hardened features and soft eyes (and played superbly by Jonathan Tucker) talks to Peggy. He entices her to meet him later for an adventure.

Mom spots the two mooning over each other and tosses out the whole group. She reminds Peggy that, with her older sister and father victims of the war, she has a duty to stay on and live a good and clean life. Most of all, she is to avoid the town of Muskeet, known for its lawlessness and licentiousness.

Her new beau, Jak, returns with his obnoxious friend and his girlfriend. She climbs into their car and they head for Muskeet. Along the way, they drink, huff inhalants, and “muscle tussle” which is slang developed during World War III which means to inject drugs into one’s muscle.

They arrive at a creepy pseudo goth club in Muskeet where Jak and his buddy are to sell their stolen blood to the club owner to give to his performers. While they deal with the owner, the girls are left to listen to the house band (featuring Smashing Pumpkins’ front man, Billy Corgan).

The deal for the blood is complete and the club host, (played over the top by Robert Englund), returns to the stage to announce the feature act of the night – Dancing Loopies. Loopies are dancing corpses. Loopy is slang for (L.U.P. or Lifeless Undead Phenomena). The MC assures everyone that what they are about to see is purely a scientific demonstration and not meant for entertainment. Such disclaimers are required by law.

An animated corpse is guided onto stage. Her body is fueled by the blood provided by bandits. Her dance motivated by repeated shocks from cattle prods wielded by stage hands. The dead body gyrates while industrial music pounds. Peggy is shocked and disgusted by what she sees.

Meanwhile, mom has found Peggy gone and pursues her to Muskeet.

The next Loopy performer is brought on stage and the cattle prodders go to work. She thrashes and kicks until her body is exhausted. She falls forward off the stage and onto the table where Peggy and her friends sit. Peggy looks into the face of the twitching corpse and recognizes it as her sister. She freaks out.

The gallant Jak, having promised Peggy that nothing bad would happen to her, grabs the corpse and Peggy and heads out of the club. The MC, seeing one of his most valuable performers being stolen, pursues them.

They meet in the street, each with a gun trained on the other in a standoff. Just then, mom arrives to try to take Peg home. The MC demands the return of his property. He says it’s rightfully his because he paid for it. He proceeds to then tell the story of how he acquired Peggy’s sister in a deal he cut with Peggy’s mother.

Just when it seems that someone must die in the standoff, Peggy speaks up and says that she will settle up with the club owner.

We then cut to a scene where Jak and Peggy are burying a body while Peggy cries over it. As that fades, we return to the club where the MC is introducing his new Loopy – Peggy’s mother.

A tip of the cap to R.C. Matheson and Tobe Hooper on an excellent piece of television horror. Matheson’s story, published in the 1950s and set in 1997, was a creepy piece of post-apocalyptic horror. R.C. Matheson modernized it. He added a new conflict to give the story the heft it needed to translate into the visual medium.

Tobe Hooper’s direction made the entire show dreary and foreboding. Bereft of cheap “gotcha” moments and excessive gore, Hooper delivers the chills the old fashioned way – with exceptional direction and cinematography.

Masters of Horror ranks as one of the finest horror anthologies I’ve ever seen. Dance of the Dead is one of the finest episodes of this fine series and one of the finer adaptations of Matheson’s work I’ve ever seen.

Book to Movie: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963)

Book to Movie: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963)
The Twilight Zone Episode 5.3
Original Air Date: October 11, 1963
Teleplay by Richard Matheson based on his short story, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

Many consider the fifth and final season of Rod Serling’s innovative series to have been uneven. Serling himself said he was beyond being able to discern between good and bad scripts anymore. Certainly there were some bad episodes that final season. But there were a couple masterpieces in there as well. One of them was Richard Matheson’s adaptation of his own short story, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.

The teleplay is almost a straight retelling of the short story as Matheson had written it more than a decade prior. The primary change was the addition of a wife with which Bob Wilson can interact. In the story, Wilson directs much of his terror inward with interior dialogue. The wife gave him someone with whom he could verbally interact with which was necessary for the story to work in the visual medium.

In Mathesons’ teleplay, Wilson and his wife board the plane. We learn he was recently released from a mental asylum after a six month stay. He’s still nervous and shaky. He’s also dreadfully afraid of flying.

Shortly after takeoff, he sees the creature on the wing (which the costume department outfitted to look like a morbidly obese teddy bear). He tells his wife and the flight attendants, none of which are able to see the creature who always jumps out of site just before they can see.

Finally, as he watches the creature start to dismantle the engines, Wilson decides he has to act. He steals a pistol from a sleeping police officer. The then opens the emergency hatch and begins shooting at the creature. He is eventually pulled in by the flight crew, confident that he hit the creature and saved the flight.

In the final scene, we see poor Bob Wilson, in a straitjacket, being loaded into an ambulance. He is calm and at peace because he knows he just saved his own life and the life of all the plane’s passengers.

This ranks as one of the most critically acclaimed and universally recognized of all the Twilight Zone episodes. A large part of that is Matheson’s brilliant script which plays into a very real fear suffered by hundreds of thousands of people. But I think part of the acclaim the episode draws comes from William Shatner’s performance.

Criticisms of William Shatner’s clipped dialogue deliver and penchant for overacting are as old as Shatner’s career itself which spans almost 60 years. Much of that criticism is warranted although a lot of it can be blamed on ham handed directing of the 1960s and 1970s.

Shatner’s maniacal, over the top acting style are precisely what the role of Bob Wilson called for. His eyes wide, his face fixed in a rictus of terror, Shatner delivers what might well be his one true tour de force of acting.

Also credit director, Richard Donner for building tension in the story. By the time Donner directed this episode, he'd already built an impressive resume in television directing with Combat, Have Gun, Will Travel, and The Rifleman. This was his first foray into horror/sci-fi and this was by far his best television work. He directed other fifth season episodes -- most of which were forgettable. Given a good script and a good leading man, Donner showed that he could direct outside of westerns and action shows.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
By Richard Matheson
Copyright 2002

Introduction by Stephen King
Stephen King, unrivaled master of the genre of horror, credits Richard Matheson for reinvigorating it after masters such as Robert Bloch abandoned it in the late 1950s. Without Richard Matheson, there would be no Stephen King.

It is remarkable that it is Matheson that King looks to and names as his inspiration. Not because Matheson is not worthy. He is one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived with extensive work in books, television and movies. It is remarkable because Matheson’s prose is delightfully honed. King’s prose is expansive and massive. No two writers could be more different in their style.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
A man who desperately fears flying, boards a DC 7 and prepares for takeoff. When they reach a cruising altitude, he looks out the window and sees a strange creature capering about on the wing with intent to do harm. He tries to convince the flight crew that there is something out there.

This finely told story was made into one of the most famous episodes of the Twilight Zone. It was a pleasure to read it as Matheson had laid it down in print for the first time all those years ago.

Dress of White Silk
A little girl lives with her grandma in the home where her mother died. When one of her friends comes to visit and pokes a little fun at her and her dead mom, our little heroine puts on a brutal fashion show for her tormentor.

Written in the patois of a six year old girl, Matheson tells a simple and inelegant tale of supernatural revenge with flair. Bravo! It was this story that, according to Ann Rice, inspired her to write horror.

Blood Son
This is the tale of a boy born to be a vampire. At a young age, he is drawn to all things that involve vampires. He disturbs his teacher and fellow classmates with lurid tales of vampirism told in class. He steals a vampire bat and allows it to drink his blood. His entire life is dedicated to achieving status of the undead.

Matheson is really the anti-Poe. Poe used lofty rhetoric and obscure words to weave his tales of terror. Matheson’s use of simple language and sparse prose is just as effective. Nowhere is that more evident than in this tale.

Through Channels
Police interview a teenager who has arrived home to find his parents and their friends dead. The friends had come over to watch television. But on the family television, instead of a test pattern, the word, “feed” is sometimes displayed. When the kid comes home to the carnage, he finds one of the e’s is gone, changing the word to past tense.

Here we see Matheson adopting the style of Isaac Asimov, driving his story almost entirely through dialogue. The tale is told through a series of tapes of the interviews the police conduct with the kid.

Witch War
A group of young, teenage girls use their magical powers to destroy an army of attacking men.

Matheson’s writing here is so sparse, that there is nary a complete sentence in the prose. Most of the narrative is sentence fragments and prepositional phrases. I’ll give him credit for trying an offbeat writing style, but the story didn’t work for me. I got the cold dispassion from the girls, but didn’t feel any sense of loss or injustice when the men, who were not developed in the narrative, died.

Mad House
A teacher becomes so bitter, angry, and depressed, that his rage is transferred from him to the inanimate objects within his home, making the most mundane and everyday tasks untenable and maddening.

All I can say is sometimes, I can relate. . . What a wonderful story.

Disappearing Act
A journal is found in a coffee house, three hours after its owner and writer left it there. It tells a story of a young man, in constant conflict with his wife about his inability to earn enough to support them. After a one night stand with a woman he meets in a bar, he chronicles the slow and random disappearance of all the people and places that make up his life.

Matheson’s tale is a first person narrative taken from a journal. He is able to tell his tale to its conclusion without providing a reader a clue as to why the man’s life is disappearing one person and place at time. The not knowing is always more satisfying than a ham handed explanation.

Legion of Plotters
A mild mannered tie salesman is driven slowly mad by life’s petty annoyances. The bus passenger who sits next to him daily and sniffs constantly, the nightly cries of the baby next door, the parties held by the neighbors upstairs, the cigarette smoke of restaurant patrons all add up to drive him toward madness. He starts to documents life’s little annoyances and grade them. He comes to the conclusion that the world is plotting against him.

I get the impression that little misbehaviors on the part of others really annoys Mr. Matheson. This story is much like Mad House. The focus on irritants by the main characters drive them to madness with sad results.

Long Distance Call
An old woman, bedridden and helpless at night, continues to receive strange phone calls during the wee hours. At first, there is just silence on the line. Then attempts at communication, with the person saying, “hello.” The woman demands that the phone company check out the line. When they do, our little old lady is shocked at where the calls are coming from. Late that night, she receives another call and her mystery caller informs her that he’ll be right over.

This is the stellar stuff of great black and white movies that used to entertain me as a child. This story is a little longer than some of Matheson’s material, but not a word is wasted. We know the voice is supernatural (after all, it’s a Matheson story), but Matheson’s ending was brilliantly conceived and written, letting us know what horror is to come, but not showing us.

I am troubled by this story because I know I’ve seen it on television, but don’t know where. There was a Twilight Zone episode called, “Long Distance Call,” but that was the one where the little boy with constantly fighting parents used the toy phone to call his dead grandmother. Great story, but it was not Matheson’s. I’ve Googled it, but can’t find it. I’d love to know where I saw this.

Slaughter House
The narrator tells how he and his bachelor brother purchase a large, old home that had stood vacant since they were kids. They restore it to its original state and settle into a comfortable existence. Over the fireplace stands a picture of a nameless beautiful woman that fascinates them. Soon, the younger brother becomes slothful, angry, and incommunicative. His brother fears he’s been overtaken by a malevolent spirit that resides in the home.

The story was ok, if not terribly original. What was remarkable about this story and what made it interesting to read was the writing style. The style here was a departure from Matheson’s sparse prose. The plot, the characters, and the style of writing were all reminiscent of the screenplays he cranked out for American International Films in the Poe adaptations and other scripts he authored for Roger Corman in the early 1960s.

Wet Straw
A man living alone in a boarding house has a recurring dream where he smells wet straw. Soon, the dream evolves into a recollection he and his now dead wife had when they were young, waiting out a rainstorm in a hayloft. His recollection of this seemingly romantic memory masks memories of the unfortunate conclusion of their marriage – and her life.

This story was suitable perhaps for grade schoolers. The twist, such as it was, was reminiscent of ghost stories kids tell each other.

Dance of the Dead
The setting is post apocalyptic Missouri and four teenagers are en route to a club in St. Louis to see a remarkable night show act with a horrifying star. Three of them are enthusiastic about getting to the show, using drugs to get into the right state of mind. The fourth has serious reservations about seeing this grisly show.

This was one of the darkest post-apocalyptic stories I’ve ever read. It brought to mind horrid images of the emaciated figures of the German concentration camps (though Matheson does not use that simile in his text). One of his finest efforts.

This story was made into an episode of the television show, Masters of Horror television series that aired on Showtime. The script was penned by Matheson’s son, Richard Christian Matheson, and was directed by horror legend, Tobe Hooper. Young Matheson expanded on ideas introduced by his father and revealed an imagination as dark and inspired as his father’s.

The Children of Noah
A holiday traveler in New England is stopped for speeding in a small Maine town. He is put in jail overnight until he can see the judge in the morning. He is told the next afternoon that the judge is sick, so they’ll have to go to the judge’s house for him to hear the case. The man is taken to the judge’s house, sentence is passed, and the visitor is invited to dinner.

Even the greats write stories that become dated. This story is dated. It may have surprised readers in the 1950s with its twist, but the twist, even though it was not telegraphed, came as no surprise to the modern reader who’s seen it many times before.

The Holiday Man
No one likes to work holidays, but one man has the horrific task of calculating holiday death tolls. What makes him so good at his vocation is that he makes the calculation before the holiday, and sees every one of them unfold before his eyes.

This is an example of Matheson being too sparse with his prose. The story idea is great and there is a gift in being able to tell a great tale with just a few words. This story, however, begged for more character development and more plot.

Old Haunts
A middle aged man returns to the boarding house in which he lived while attending college, hoping to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. He rents the room and then begins roaming the area, seeing old haunts. He feels as if he’s being watched or followed. Instead of bringing back good memories, the trip instead has him reflecting on a life wasted. As he goes to sleep that night in his old room, a figure appears telling him he can’t come back and he needs to get gone.

This is obviously a supernatural midlife crisis. Each of us has returned to someplace formative in our lives, relived the memories there, and thought about how our lives might have been different had we seized different opportunities. Unfortunately for Matheson’s character, his younger self isn’t happy with the choices his older self made.

The Distributor
A new man moves into Joseph Alston’s neighborhood and promptly introduces himself to Alston as Theodore Gordon. At first, Gordon seems amicable enough. But soon, he starts to “redistribute” the belongings of his neighbors. When they complain, Gordon seizes control of the neighborhood through nefarious and prurient means.

Theodore Gordon must be a Democrat. . .

Crickets
A vacationing couple encounter a man who claims he’s decoded the language of crickets. These noisy nocturnal insects, he tells them, telegraph the names of the dead. He tells them that he’s heard his own name on the crickets’ list and he wants their help.

Crickets as psychopomps is an interesting concept. They are black like death. They haunt the night. I’ll never listen to a cricket again without wondering whose name they are chirping. Brilliant story!

First Anniversary
A man kicks off his first anniversary with his lovely bride by telling her she tastes sour. She is peeved. Then he quits tasting, smelling, and feeling her. It’s finally time for him to face some hard realities and she’s going to make him do it.

I knew it was a space alien – and it wasn’t. Matheson comes at marriage from an unlikely direction and creates an intriguing story.

The Likeness of Julie
A college student in is inexplicably attracted to the plain, childish looking girl who sits behind him in his literature class. He’s more than attracted to her. His emotions devolve into violent fantasies of rape and debasement. He hatches his plan of debauchery and asks her out. But whose idea is it really?

Definitely not one of Mr. Matheson’s most politically correct stories. But the woman gets the last laugh and we find that the poor college student, whom we come to loathe in the narrative, is actually the victim. Matheson stories have more twists than a hemp rope.

Prey
A woman buys a Zuni fetish doll for her boyfriend who likes to hunt. The doll is called He Who Kills and the package comes with a warning that the little gold chain must be kept on the doll to keep the Zuni spirit at bay. But when she is arguing with her mother on the phone, the doll is knocked over and the chain comes off. The woman fights for her life against a six inch tall Zuni hunter.

This is one of Matheson’s best known stories, made famous by the television horror movie, Trilogy of Terror which starred Karen Black in three different roles in three stories based on Matheson’s work. This segment, entitled Amelia, was the only one of the three in the movie given the screen treatment by Matheson himself. The story is average, but the transfer to film is brilliant. King gave it an update, using plastic toy soldiers in his story, Battleground from Night Shift. In the Nightmares and Dreamscapes television miniseries episode based on the King story, the doll appears briefly in a shot – King’s homage to his mentor.