Hollywood Horrors and Documentaries

 

Hollywood Horrors and Documentaries

by Kristin Battestella

This trio of twenty-first century documentaries looks back on our intertwined literary horrors, Hollywood hits, and witchy history.

The Strange Life of Dr. Frankenstein – Classic film clips on life, death, and horror open this 2018 documentary hour on the eponymous novel before the narration goes back to 1816 for Mary Shelley origins and Geneva tales. Portraits and early film footage accent the scholars recounting how Shelley's Wollstonecraft background and anti-patriarchy stance shaped her literary monster – breaking down the titular history into themed chapters on man and automatons. Subsequent Percy Bysshe Shelley artistic influence, emerging medical science, and real life surgeons inspiring Mary are showcased via novel excerpts on grave robbing, electricity, and unnatural ways to create and create life from death. Brief highlights from the 1931 Frankenstein and TheBride of Frankenstein examine the monster's mate, sexual fears, and how Boris Karloff's made up, growling, green abomination seeped into the cultural lexicon yet differs from the novel's monstrous veneer versus orphaned sadness. Our doctor's obsessions succeed and exceed, and his mad scientist is not so dissimilar from today's science fiction becoming fact. The final segment looks at the Frankenstein legacy and how it's parables appeal to the masses – even those who've never read the book. We've still not learned about outdoing our creator thanks to atom bombs and today's technological replacements instilling the same fears that inspired Mary Shelley. This is a French production with some historians translated, and the B roll horror and nudity mean this might not be for the younger classroom. However, this is a pleasing summation and analysis focusing on the novel rather than the film adaptions for older newcomers and longtime fans.

Who Done It: The Clue Documentary – Vintage trailers open this fond 2022 retrospective on the 1985 comedy Clue amid raw interview footage of director Jonathan Lynn's (My Cousin Vinny) recounting the initial executive meetings and their laughter at the thought of making a board game into a movie. Experts and Clue connoisseurs praise producer Debra Hill's (Halloween) impact in making the film possible despite script troubles, numerous writers, how to frame the whodunit, difficulties over who gets the story credit, and famous names falling through during casting such as Carrie Fisher. Backgrounds on the ensemble anchor natural, humorous recollections with Colleen Camp, Michael McKean, Leslie Ann Warren, Lee Ving, and archive clips with Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd. Analyzing the artwork, design, costumes, and score leads to reflections on the soft box office and confusion over the three endings before video sales renewed Clue's camp legacy. Our filmmaker Jeff C. Smith (Stupid Teenagers Must Die!) also appears upon going to an auction to purchase the original matte paintings from film. At over one hundred minutes, this is a little long with our documentarian talking to the camera while driving his car throughout the narrative – intruding on a flow that is otherwise unbiased rather than personal. The finale also meanders with rambling fan moments when such tattoos and Clue themed proposals should have opened the tribute. Fortunately, overall this is a lighthearted look perfect for fans of the beloved comedy.

The Witches of Hollywood – Authors and experts discuss the history of Hollywood witches in this hour long 2020 retrospective. Shakespearean witches, Malleus Maleficarum sources, and infamous trials with mostly female victims accused of being in bed with Satan predate western society's fear of femininity yet laid the groundwork for the brooms and pointy hats. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs introduces audiences to the femme fatale's alluring power while The Wizard of Oz provides green stereotypes of bad crones versus pretty, good witches. I Married a Witch offers love spells and the happy housewife during World War II before the chic Bell, Book & Candle wants to give up the magic to be a normal girl. Bewitched lampoons the loss of powers to achieve the domestic American dream alongside The Feminine Mystique, birth control, and the rise of women's liberation. The end of Hollywood Production code leads to an increase of film nudity, sexuality, blood, fear, and the occult as foreign films like Black Sunday come to the masses grappling with menstruation and Carrie. Although the counterculture embraced the realistic witchcraft scenes in Season of the Witch, the male horror of not being needed by the woman acerbates the subsequent Reagan era and the Moral Majority. Satanic Panic perceives New Age practices as in league with satanism, yet The Witches of Eastwick owns the girl power stereotypes and religious commentary. Positive coming of age in The Craft embraces autonomy and addresses racism compared to the often subservient Anglo depictions, and the witch becomes intelligent and capable on television with Sabrina, Charmed, and Buffy. The Witch and American Horror Story: Coven begat new diversity and magical evolution from shamed to unabashed amid ongoing movements in today's turbulent political climate. This is a well done, insightful piece providing a succinct parallel between culture and historical changes and the representations of the witch onscreen.

Retro Bonus

Ancient Mysteries: Witches – This fourth season episode of the 1990s A&E series hosted by Leonard Nimoy is obscure if you don't have it on video. However the old fashioned lack of winks, reenactments, and hyperbole permeating today's documentaries lends a straightforward, time capsule appeal. Experts recount benign goddess worship from Scandinavia to the Middle East before pagan suppression and medieval torture thanks to preposterous but rampant theories about flying witches and sexual sabbaths with the devil. Separating the ancient misnomers, witch trial persecutions, and Salem infamy fact from fiction gives way to fading supernatural fears, cyclical do no harm philosophies, and contemporary Wiccan practices. Despite its elusiveness, this is a well rounded and informative analysis for any age.