by Adam Rockoff
Turns out, they were. In July 2013, the blogosphere erupted with hard evidence that Spiderbaby was a serial plagiarist. The examples cited were so egregious they were almost comical; entire paragraphs were lifted verbatim. The reaction was swift and predictable. She was crucified by fans and fellow writers alike.
Generally, I take no pleasure in the misfortune of others, unless those others are people I actively dislike—then I revel in it. But I didn’t have much sympathy for Spiderbaby either. After all, she was irrefutably guilty. She broke the cardinal rule—or at least one of the cardinal rules—of journalism. That said, I wasn’t nearly as enraged as most people were. Call me a cynic, but once her crimes were pointed out, all it did was bring more attention to the original writer. If somebody ripped me off, as long as everyone knew it, I’d come out smelling like a rose. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then outright plagiarism is the sincerest form of sycophancy.
I wasn’t particularly surprised that Spiderbaby (the more I write it, the more ridiculous her name seems) had no ethical barrier to taking a shortcut. Sad to say, but I’ve long stopped being shocked by the moral failings of others. What was far more stupefying was that Spiderbaby thought she could get away with it. That she weighed the cost-to-benefit ratio and decided it was worth the risk. As writers, the one thing we can control is our integrity. You might think I’m an untalented hack and an irredeemable asshole, but at least I’ve led you to that conclusion honestly. Oftentimes, to the detriment of a sentence’s construction, I’ll ineloquently make reference to other works from which I’ve drawn, even if I’ve done so obliquely. Other times, I actually refuse to use a certain phrase because, although I can’t place it, I’m certain I’ve heard it somewhere before. I’m completely terrified someone will call me a fraud. It’s similar to the reason I could never wear a toupee, even though I’m under no illusion about the fact that I would look far better with the thick curly hair I once had rather than the thinning remnants I now sport. However, were I to opt for a piece, I would feel compelled to tell every single person I met that I was in no way trying to be coy about the pelt sitting atop my head. Or else I’d go fucking crazy, like the dude from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” obsessed with continuing the charade.
In the long run, the only person this whole episode really affects is Lianne (I can’t bear to write “Spiderbaby” anymore) herself. She made her bed and now she has to lie in it. That she’s sharing it with Tarantino might mitigate the sting of her banishment to some degree. But one thing is certain: it’s going to take a long time—and a few genuine mea culpas (which admittedly she’s already given)—before any periodical will even think of hiring her again.
While we’re on the subject of magazines, it seems that there’s nothing horror fans enjoy more than griping about those that cover the genre. And when I say “those” I’m really talking about the big two—Fangoria and Rue Morgue—because honestly, none of the other ones matter. I’m not saying that none of the others are good; some of them are quality publications. But even the ones that are uniformly excellent, like Tim Lucas’s Video Watchdog, lack either the distribution or influence to be representative of the genre the way that Fango and Rue Morgue are.
The most frequent complaint about Fangoria is that it covers bloated, big-budget studio horror at the expense of smaller indie films or forgotten classics from the past. For Rue Morgue, it’s an almost too-cool-for-school attitude exhibited by a stable of writers who would rather call attention to their own snark than offer an honest critique.
Both criticisms are equally invalid.
Even before Chris Alexander took over in 2010 as editor-in-chief of Fango—and, truthfully, did put more of an emphasis on retro shit—the magazine always made sure to balance its contemporary coverage with retrospectives. I remember Fango’s longtime, even-keeled managing editor Michael Gingold becoming apoplectic because of a reader’s letter making this charge. I’m too tired to go back through a decade’s worth of “Postal Zones” to find the exact exchange, but basically Gingold’s rebuttal was that The Beyond had been featured on the cover of the magazine two times in the past year—not bad for a fairly obscure European film over twenty years old. And he was absolutely right. As for Rue Morgue, their writers are opinionated. Sometimes obnoxiously so. They’re also incredibly well versed, they’re passionate, and they don’t suffer fools (or shitty films, books, or albums) gladly. You want pabulum? Read the film reviews in Us Weekly.
Like every other ill of the twenty-first century, we can blame the horror community’s penchant for self-flagellation on the Internet. Specifically, on the Internet’s ability to give every asshole with an opinion an anonymous forum in which to air it. Read a review, any review, from one of your favorite websites. Then scroll down to the comments. I guarantee you, it will seem like someone’s offering a prize to whoever can be the most offensive. As Rodrigo Gudiño told me, “Social networks are vehicles for people to express their dislike or negative ideas about anything. They’re used as a tool to bitch.”
The Internet has also democratized the medium so the fans, and not just the critics, can separate the wheat from the chaff. Many would say this is a good thing, a true meritocracy where the great unwashed alone can decide the fate of a movie. Maybe.
On the other hand, what is being lost is the kind of Us vs. Them mentality that used to pit the horror faithful against the mainstream press. Did anybody give a shit what reviewers from the New York Times and the Washington Post had to say about Friday the 13th Part V, if they said anything at all? Of course not. It was taken as a matter of faith that they would hate it. In fact, that’s what added to the appeal. When Interview with the Vampire started receiving rave reviews and Oscar buzz began building for the stars, I knew it was the kiss of death. And sure enough, that movie sucked.
One might argue this criticism is healthy. That it proves a genre is strong enough to withstand the brickbats of even its most ardent supporters. Possibly. There’s no question that the Internet, as a technology, has been infinitely more boom than bust for horror films, especially in terms of disseminating information. Back in the day, breaking horror news came via monthly updates in Fangoria and, if it was big enough (meaning it involved a star or a juicy scandal), possibly through general-interest entertainment periodicals and industry trades. But if the issue was published three weeks after the news was out, it was hardly “breaking.” Today, websites like Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, Shock Till You Drop, and thousands of others of varying quality churn out updates by the minute. As far as reliable sources go, Fango and Rue Morgue can’t compete. The reason, I pray, that neither will go the way of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter—venerable trade magazines decimated by Deadline Hollywood—is because both offer the kind of analysis and access that no website can currently provide.
Nor is there any question that the Internet has made everything having to do with horror much easier. For the content creators, the financing, producing, distributing, and marketing of horror movies has been irrevocably changed—unless of course we’re talking about huge studio films, but even these are starting to take cues from their low-budget brethren, especially on the promotional front. For the consumers, you can meet like-minded fans, purchase rare imports, and buy, sell, or trade any type of memorabilia online. The only thing that’s missing is the human element. In the good old days, third-generation SLP VHS tapes used to be traded in person—from the trunks of cars and in the backs of old bookstores—not shipped through the US Postal Service from some gigantic central warehouse. I’m convinced that this is one of the main reasons the convention scene has thrived in recent years. Despite the notion of horror fans being something of vampiric loners, only crawling out of our basement lairs after sundown, we’re really a pretty social subculture. We crave the human connection that can’t be duplicated by purchasing something on eBay.
Let’s assume I owned zero VHS cassettes, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, or any other piece of physical media. With an Internet con
nection, I could still watch more than 75 percent of the films I’ve mentioned in this book without ever leaving my couch. How fucking crazy is that? Whether it’s Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Crackle, Hulu, or some other obscure streaming service, a few clicks of the mouse can bring me any number of illicit thrills. Eat your heart out, Videodrome.
It’s a far cry from when I was writing Going to Pieces, way back in the late nineties, and needed immediate access to a number of obscure titles that I didn’t own. This was a sad time for the home video industry. The majority of the mom-and-pop video stores were being shuttered, and although the large national chains were still plugging along, everyone saw the writing on the wall. A few indie stalwarts like Big Brother, Blast Off Video, and Darkstar Video held out for as long as they could before they were forced out of business by market conditions beyond their control. I don’t expect these names to mean anything to anybody outside of Chicago—and really, few people in it—but if only for posterity I want to give them the tiny bit of recognition they deserve.
The best of the bunch was an independent video store located in the Hyde Park neighborhood. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name. And now, it’s long gone. Hyde Park is a beautiful oasis of brick and greenery surrounded by strife, not unlike Columbia University before Harlem became chic and relatively safe. It is home to Barack Obama and the University of Chicago, which means it’s usually teeming with police officers and college students in porkpie hats.
Late at night, once rush hour was long over, I would drive from my home on the north side of the city down Lake Shore Drive into Hyde Park, singing the Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah song “Lake Shore Drive” at the top of my lungs. I’ve been told that hard-core Chicagoans hate this song and find it ridiculously cheesy. I think it’s beautiful. And the blue lights shining with a heavenly grace, help you ride on by . . .
The store was poorly organized and understaffed. To make matters worse, because it was in a bad area—it was the only video store I’ve ever been to in which it was not uncommon for a fight to break out—only the empty boxes were displayed. So even if a case was on the shelf, that was certainly no guarantee that the clerk could locate the corresponding cassette. The entire experience was inconvenient, annoying, and somewhat dangerous. To add insult to injury, I don’t think anybody in the store had any idea how to properly price a rental, resulting in my having to pay exorbitant fees to keep Headless Eyes for the weekend. But looking back, the oddball moments in the store are what I remember. Not lying on the couch in my warm apartment with a glass of wine while Final Exam played on the flat-screen but sitting on the cold linoleum floor of that video store, my eyes wide with glee like a kid’s on Christmas morning as I stumbled across the working boxIV for Microwave Massacre.
For a fleeting moment, I was transported back to the Book Swap. Mark Cichowski was telling me to hurry up so we could go watch Mausoleum for the umpteenth time.
I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. But it wasn’t Mark. It was one of the store employees, telling me to get my ass off their floor.
* * *
I. At my most stylish, I wore a Playboy bunny, a lightning bolt, and my football number, all at once in one ear.
II. Most offensive to me is Friedkin’s explanation for the rise of Nazism, which he attributes to demonic possession—and he means this literally, not metaphorically—as it absolves the Nazis and the willing German populace of any responsibility for the Holocaust.
III. Stern goes on to speculate that the smell of Trudeau’s wife Jane Pauley’s vagina could be the cause of the cartoonist’s problems. Although he does so in far cruder terms.
IV. This was the ne plus ultra of big box marketing from the VHS era. From what I can recall, the cover actually had working lights and sounds.
CHAPTER NINE
Postmodern Blues
In 1997, Miramax was the epicenter of the independent film world. Just a few years earlier, it had upended the economics of the business with its $60 million sale to the Walt Disney Company. A year after that, it upended the very definition of indie film itself with the release of Pulp Fiction. This was no minor hit along the lines of Sex, Lies, and Videotape; it was a blockbuster by even the strictest definition of the word.
The Weinstein brothers stood at the intersection of art and commerce, like two fat ill-mannered colossuses. Their mother ship churned out art house classics like The Crying Game, The Piano, and The English Patient, while their horror label, Dimension Films, printed money with hits such as The Crow and From Dusk Till Dawn, as well as forgettable sequels to the Halloween, Hellraiser, and Children of the Corn franchises.
To any kid worth his salt who wanted to make it in the New York City film industry, there was no better place to start. Thanks to a summer internship I’d had at a rival company, I was able to finagle an interview with Bobby Cohen, then Miramax’s senior vice president of production. Cohen seemed like a nice enough guy (an impression confirmed years later when he agreed to read one of my scripts) and I came in brimming with confidence. And why not? After all, the company was still riding high following the success of Scream, a sleeper horror hit from Wes Craven that came out of nowhere to become Dimension’s top-grossing film. And I was the ultimate horror fan. Clearly, this was a match made in heaven. I had absolutely no doubt that the two of us, me and Dimension Films, were going to reinvent the genre. Greatness was within my grasp.
The interview started off fine. Cohen laid out some of the position’s responsibilities and I rattled off the appropriate responses about how I was willing to do anything to learn and how if I had a fault, it was that I worked too hard, was too much of a perfectionist, and would probably be too dedicated to my job. Later in the interview, after I casually mentioned that I was a rabid horror fan, Cohen asked me what I thought of Scream. Assuming most of the other candidates would have answered the same question with, “I loved it!” or “It was great,” I opted to go the other way. I took a deep breath and explained how Scream was a fraud. How it pretended to operate at some higher level while exploiting the same conventions that made its less ironic predecessors so successful.
Soon after, the interview concluded. The crazy thing is that while walking to my car I was completely convinced that I had the job (the crazier thing is that I actually passed by Scream creator Kevin Williamson, who was standing in the parking lot smoking a cigarette, although I didn’t recognize him at the time). If anything, my critical analysis of Scream, compounded with my unfiltered honesty, sealed the deal. After all, there was a reason I had been the film critic for my college newspaper, the Daily Cardinal.I Who in their right mind wouldn’t be desperate for my opinion? It never occurred to me that a high-powered film executive in the real world wouldn’t just love a precocious postgraduate trying to discredit his cash cow.
Not surprisingly (to anybody except for me), I didn’t get the job. At least I learned from my mistakes. From then on, I told every prospective employer that whatever they had done was nothing short of the greatest movie since Citizen Kane. And since the film industry as a whole is so self-deluded, some of them actually believed me.
The thing is, I wasn’t wrong about Scream. I might have been an insufferable little prick, but I wasn’t wrong.
To understand the Scream phenomenon, and to appreciate its importance to the horror genre as a whole, you really have to go back a good ten years or so before the film came out. By the mid-eighties, the horror film as a whole was in trouble. The slasher franchises that had so dominated the horror landscape for the first half of the decade were former shells of themselves. Financially, they were still earning a pretty penny, which is why they continued to be made. But soon they started deviating from the formula that had made them so successful. Conventional wisdom holds that slasher films eventually petered out because audiences tired of the same old story lines. In reality, hard-core fans only lost interest when their beloved films were bowdlerized beyond recognition. It was bad enough that in Friday the 13th Part V: A Ne
w Beginning the killer wasn’t even Jason Voorhees. But in Part VIII, he actually traveled to Manhattan. It would only be a few more years before he went to hell and then reappeared in outer space!
To make matters worse, no new franchises were stepping up to replace the old guard. Sure, films like Witchboard, Pumpkinhead, and Maniac Cop spawned sequels, but not only were these far from the windfalls that the Fridays and Nightmares were, but they never crossed over into popular culture. My grandmother knew who Freddy Krueger was; Malfeitor (the evil spirit in Witchboard) was about as well-known as Cal Ripken Jr.’s backup.
During this time, there was also a dearth of “adult” or “serious” horror films. No Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby that captured the zeitgeist and made the cover of Time. In fact, the most successful movies were kid-friendly offerings like The Goonies, Ghostbusters, The Monster Squad, and The Lost Boys. The rise of horror lite dovetailed with the inception of the PG-13 rating. Implemented after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and first used on Red Dawn, the rating sought to pacify parents who wanted some designation to bridge the gap between family-friendly scares like Star Wars and E.T. and a film like, say, Straw Dogs. Studios loved the new rating. They could still make horror films, but by excising only a few seconds of sex and blood, and maybe a “fuck” here and there, an enormous new demographic was now accessible. Horror fans, on the other hand, viewed the PG-13 rating as a warning of their own—a warning to stay clear of the watered-down frights ahead.